Well, there's the game. I throw the stakes.
Lady Cantourne was sitting alone in her drawing-room, and the expression of her usually bright and smiling face betokened considerable perturbation.
Truth to tell, there were not many things in life that had power to frighten her ladyship very much. Hers had been a prosperous life as prosperity is reckoned. She had married a rich man who had retained his riches while he lived and had left them to her when he died. And that was all the world knew of Lady Cantourne. Like the majority of us, she presented her character and not herself to her neighbours; and these held, as neighbours do, that the cheery, capable little woman of the world whom they met everywhere was Lady Cantourne. Circumstances alter us less than we think. If we are of a gay temperament—gay we shall be through all. If sombre, no happiness can drive that sombreness away. Lady Cantourne was meant for happiness and a joyous motherhood. She had had neither; but she went on being “meant” until the end—that is to say, she was still cheery and capable. She had thrown an open letter on the little table at her side—a letter from Jack Meredith announcing his return to England, and his natural desire to call and pay his respects in the course of the afternoon.
“So,” she had said before she laid the letter aside, “he is home again—and he means to carry it through?”
Then she had settled down to think, in her own comfortable chair (for if one may not be happy, comfort is at all events within the reach of some of us), and the troubled look had supervened.
Each of our lives is like a book with one strong character moving through its pages. The strong character in Lady Cantourne's book had been Sir John Meredith. Her whole life seemed to have been spent on the outskirts of his—watching it. And what she had seen had not been conducive to her own happiness.
She knew that the note she had just received meant a great deal to Sir John Meredith. It meant that Jack had come home with the full intention of fulfilling his engagement to Millicent Chyne. At first she had rather resented Sir John's outspoken objection to her niece as his son's wife. But during the last months she had gradually come round to his way of thinking; not, perhaps, for the first time in her life. She had watched Millicent. She had studied her own niece dispassionately, as much from Sir John Meredith's point of view as was possible under the circumstances. And she had made several discoveries. The first of these had been precisely that discovery which one would expect from a woman—namely, the state of Millicent's own feelings.
Lady Cantourne had known for the last twelve months—almost as long as Sir John Meredith had known—that Millicent loved Jack. Upon this knowledge came the humiliation—the degradation—of one flirtation after another; and not even after, but interlaced. Guy Oscard in particular, and others in a minor degree, had passed that way. It was a shameless record of that which might have been good in a man prostituted and trampled under foot by the vanity of a woman. Lady Cantourne was of the world worldly; and because of that, because the finest material has a seamy side, and the highest walks in life have the hardiest weeds, she knew what love should be. Here was a love—it may be modern, advanced, chic, fin-de-siecle, up-to-date, or anything the coming generation may choose to call it—but it was eminently cheap and ephemeral because it could not make a little sacrifice of vanity. For the sake of the man she loved—mark that!—not only the man to whom she was engaged, but whom she loved—Millicent Chyne could not forbear pandering to her own vanity by the sacrifice of her own modesty and purity of thought. There was the sting for Lady Cantourne.
She was tolerant and eminently wise, this old lady who had made one huge mistake long ago; and she knew that the danger, the harm, the low vulgarity lay in the little fact that Millicent Chyne loved Jack Meredith, according to her lights.
While she still sat there the bell rang, and quite suddenly she chased away the troubled look from her eyes, leaving there the keen, kindly gaze to which the world of London society was well accustomed. When Jack Meredith came into the room, she rose to greet him with a smile of welcome.
“Before I shake hands,” she said, “tell me if you have been to see your father.”
“I went last night—almost straight from the station. The first person I spoke to in London, except a cabman.”
So she shook hands.
“You know,” she said, without looking at him—indeed, carefully avoiding doing so—“life is too short to quarrel with one's father. At least it may prove too short to make it up again—that is the danger.”
She sat down, with a graceful swing of her silken skirt which was habitual with her—the remnant of a past day.
Jack Meredith winced. He had seen a difference in his father, and Lady Cantourne was corroborating it.
“The quarrel was not mine,” he said. “I admit that I ought to have known him better. I ought to have spoken to him before asking Millicent. It was a mistake.”
Lady Cantourne looked up suddenly.
“What was a mistake?”
“Not asking his—opinion first.”
She turned to the table where his letter lay, and fingered the paper pensively.
“I thought, perhaps, that you had found that the other was a mistake—the engagement.”
“No,” he answered.
Lady Cantourne's face betrayed nothing. There was no sigh, of relief or disappointment. She merely looked at the clock.
“Millicent will be in presently,” she said; “she is out riding.”
She did not think it necessary to add that her niece was riding with a very youthful officer in the Guards. Lady Cantourne never made mischief from a sense of duty, or any mistaken motive of that sort. Some people argue that there is very little that is worth keeping secret; to which one may reply that there is still less worth disclosing.
They talked of other things—of his life in Africa, of his success with the Simiacine, of which discovery the newspapers were not yet weary—until the bell was heard in the basement, and thereafter Millicent's voice in the hall.
Lady Cantourne rose deliberately and went downstairs to tell her niece that he was in the drawing-room, leaving him there, waiting, alone.
Presently the door opened and Millicent hurried in. She threw her gloves and whip—anywhere—on the floor, and ran to him.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried.
It was very prettily done. In its way it was a poem. But while his arms were still round her she looked towards the window, wondering whether he had seen her ride up to the door accompanied by the very youthful officer in the Guards.
“And, Jack—do you know,” she went on, “all the newspapers have been full of you. You are quite a celebrity. And are you really as rich as they say?”
Jack Meredith was conscious of a very slight check—it was not exactly a jar. His feeling was that rather of a man who thinks that he is swimming in deep water, and finds suddenly that he can touch the bottom.
“I think I can safely say that I am not,” he answered.
And it was from that eminently practical point that they departed into the future—arranging that same, and filling up its blanks with all the wisdom of lovers and the rest of us.
Lady Cantourne left them there for nearly an hour, in which space of time she probably reflected they could build up as rosy a future as was good for them to contemplate. Then she returned to the drawing-room, followed by a full-sized footman bearing tea.
She was too discreet a woman—too deeply versed in the sudden changes of the human mind and heart—to say anything until one of them should give her a distinct lead. They were not shy and awkward children. Perhaps she reflected that the generation to which they belonged is not one heavily handicapped by too subtle a delicacy of feeling.
Jack Meredith gave her the lead before long.
“Millicent,” he said, without a vestige of embarrassment, “has consented to be openly engaged now.”
Lady Cantourne nodded comprehensively.
“I think she is very wise,” she said.
There was a little pause.
“I KNOW she is very wise,” she added, turning and laying her hand on Jack's arm. The two phrases had quite a different meaning. “She will have a good husband.”
“So you can tell EVERYBODY now,” chimed in Millicent in her silvery way. She was blushing and looking very pretty with her hair blown about her ears by her last canter with the youthful officer, who was at that moment riding pensively home with a bunch of violets in his coat which had not been there when he started from the stable.
She had found out casually from Jack that Guy Oscard was exiled vaguely to the middle of Africa for an indefinite period. The rest—the youthful officer and the others—did not give her much anxiety. They, she argued to herself, had nothing to bring against her. They may have THOUGHT things—but who can prevent people from thinking things? Besides, “I thought” is always a poor position.
There were, it was true, a good many men whom she would rather not tell herself. But this difficulty was obviated by requesting Lady Cantourne to tell everybody. Everybody would tell everybody else, and would, of course, ask if these particular persons in question had been told; if not, they would have to be told at once. Indeed there would be quite a competition to relieve Millicent of her little difficulty. Besides, she could not marry more than one person. Besides—besides—besides—the last word of Millicent and her kind.
Lady Cantourne was not very communicative during that dainty little tea a trois, but she listened smilingly to Jack's optimistic views and Millicent's somewhat valueless comments.
“I am certain,” said Millicent, at length boldly attacking the question that was in all their minds, “that Sir John will be all right now. Of course, it is only natural that he should not like Jack to—to get engaged yet. Especially before, when it would have made a difference to him—in money, I mean. But now that Jack is independent—you know, auntie, that Jack is richer than Sir John—is it not nice?”
“Very,” answered Lady Cantourne, in a voice rather suggestive of humouring a child's admiration of a new toy; “very nice indeed.”
“And all so quickly!” pursued Millicent. “Only a few months—not two years, you know. Of course, at first, the time went horribly slow; but afterwards, when one got accustomed to it, life became tolerable. You did not expect me to sit and mope all day, did you, Jack?”
“No, of course not,” replied Jack; and quite suddenly, as in a flash, he saw his former self, and wondered vaguely whether he would get back to that self.
Lady Cantourne was rather thoughtful at that moment. She could not help coming back and back to Sir John.
“Of course,” she said to Jack, “we must let your father know at once. The news must not reach him from an outside source.”
Jack nodded.
“If it did,” he said, “I do not think the 'outside source' would get much satisfaction out of him.”
“Probably not; but I was not thinking of the 'outside source' or the outside effect. I was thinking of his feelings,” replied Lady Cantourne rather sharply. She had lately fallen into the habit of not sparing Millicent very much; and that young lady, bright and sweet and good-natured, had not failed to notice it. Indeed, she had spoken of it to several people—to partners at dances and others. She attributed it to approaching old age.
“I will write and tell him,” said Jack quietly.
Lady Cantourne raised her eyebrows slightly, but made no spoken comment.
“I think,” she said, after a little pause, “that Millicent ought to write too.”
Millicent shuddered prettily. She was dimly conscious that her handwriting—of an exaggerated size, executed with a special broad-pointed pen purchasable in only one shop in Regent Street—was not likely to meet with his approval. A letter written thus—two words to a line—on note-paper that would have been vulgar had it not been so very novel, was sure to incur prejudice before it was fully unfolded by a stuffy, old-fashioned person.
“I will try,” she said; “but you know, auntie dear, I CANNOT write a long explanatory letter. There never seems to be time, does there? Besides, I am afraid Sir John disapproves of me. I don't know why; I'm sure I have tried”—which was perfectly true.
Even funerals and lovers must bow to meal-times, and Jack Meredith was not the man to outstay his welcome. He saw Lady Cantourne glance at the clock. Clever as she was, she could not do it without being seen by him.
So he took his leave, and Millicent went to the head of the stairs with him.
He refused the pressing invitation of a hansom-cabman, and proceeded to walk leisurely home to his rooms. Perhaps he was wondering why his heart was not brimming over with joy. The human heart has a singular way of seeing farther than its astute friend and coadjutor, the brain. It sometimes refuses to be filled with glee, when outward circumstances most distinctly demand that state. And at other times, when outward things are strong, not to say opaque, the heart is joyful, and we know not why.
Jack Meredith knew that he was the luckiest man in London. He was rich, in good health, and he was engaged to be married to Millicent Chyne, the acknowledged belle of his circle. She had in no way changed. She was just as pretty, as fascinating, as gay as ever; and something told him that she loved him—something which had not been there before he went away, something that had come when the overweening vanity of youth went. And it was just this knowledge to which he clung with a nervous mental grip. He did not feel elated as he should; he was aware of that, and he could not account for it. But Millicent loved him, so it must be all right. He had always cared for Millicent. Everything had been done in order that he might marry her—the quarrel with his father, the finding of the Simiacine, the determination to get well which had saved his life—all this so that he might marry Millicent. And now he was going to marry her, and it must be all right. Perhaps, as men get older, the effervescent elation of youth leaves them; but they are none the less happy. That must be it.
Where he fixed his heart he set his handTo do the thing he willed.
“MY DEAR SIR JOHN,—It is useless my pretending to ignore your views respecting Jack's marriage to Millicent; and I therefore take up my pen with regret to inform you that the two young people have now decided to make public their engagement. Moreover, I imagine it is their intention to get married very soon. You and I have been friends through a longer spell of years than many lives and most friendships extend, and at the risk of being considered inconsequent I must pause to thank you—well—to thank you for having been so true a friend to me all through my life. If that life were given to me to begin again, I should like to retrace the years back to a point when—little more than a child—I yielded to influence and made a great mistake. I should like to begin my life over again from there. When you first signified your disapproval of Millicent as a wife for Jack, I confess I was a little nettled; but on the strength of the friendship to which I have referred I must ask you to believe that never from the moment that I learnt your opinion have I by thought or action gone counter to it. This marriage is none of my doing. Jack is too good for her—I see that now. You are wiser than I—you always have been. If any word of mine can alleviate your distress at this unwelcome event, let it be that I am certain that Millicent has the right feeling for your boy; and from this knowledge I cannot but gather great hopes. All may yet come to your satisfaction. Millicent is young, and perhaps a little volatile, but Jack inherits your strength of character; he may mould her to better things than either you or I dream of. I hope sincerely that it may be so. If I have appeared passive in this matter it is not because I have been indifferent; but I know that my yea or nay could carry no weight.—Your old friend,
“CAROLINE CANTOURNE.”
This letter reached Sir John Meredith while he was waiting for the announcement that dinner was ready. The announcement arrived immediately afterwards, but he did not go down to dinner until he had read the letter. He fumbled for his newly-purchased eyeglasses, because Lady Cantourne's handwriting was thin and spidery, as became a lady of standing; also the gas was so d——d bad. He used this expression somewhat freely, and usually put a “Sir” after it as his father had done before him.
His eyes grew rather fierce as he read; then they suddenly softened, and he threw back his shoulders as he had done a thousand times on the threshold of Lady Cantourne's drawing-room. He read the whole letter very carefully and gravely, as if all that the writer had to say was worthy of his most respectful attention. Then he folded the paper and placed it in the breast-pocket of his coat. He looked a little bowed and strangely old, as he stood for a moment on the hearthrug thinking. It was his practice to stand thus on the hearthrug from the time that he entered the drawing-room, dressed, until the announcement of dinner; and the cook far below in the basement was conscious of the attitude of the master as the pointer of the clock approached the hour.
Of late Sir John had felt a singular desire to sit down whenever opportunity should offer; but he had always been found standing on the hearthrug by the butler, and, hard old aristocrat that he was, he would not yield to the somewhat angular blandishments of the stiff-backed chair.
He stood for a few moments with his back to the smouldering fire, and, being quite alone, he perhaps forgot to stiffen his neck; for his head drooped, his lips were unsteady. He was a very old man.
A few minutes later, when he strode into the dining-room where butler and footman awaited him, he was erect, imperturbable, impenetrable.
At dinner it was evident that his keen brain was hard at work. He forgot one or two of the formalities which were religiously observed at that solitary table. He hastened over his wine, and then he went to the library. There he wrote a telegram, slowly, in his firm ornamental handwriting.
It was addressed to “Gordon, Loango,” and the gist of it was—“Wire whereabouts of Oscard—when he may be expected home.”
The footman was despatched in a hansom cab, with instructions to take the telegram to the head office of the Submarine Telegraph Company, and there to arrange prepayment of the reply.
“I rather expect Mr. Meredith,” said Sir John to the butler, who was trimming the library lamp while the footman received his instructions. “Do not bring coffee until he comes.”
And Sir John was right. At half-past eight Jack arrived. Sir John was awaiting him in the library, grimly sitting in his high-backed chair, as carefully dressed as for a great reception.
He rose when his son entered the room, and they shook hands. There was a certain air of concentration about both, as if they each intended to say more than they had ever said before. The coffee was duly brought. This was a revival of an old custom. In bygone days Jack had frequently come in thus, and they had taken coffee before going together in Sir John's carriage to one of the great social functions at which their presence was almost a necessity. Jack had always poured out the coffee—to-night he did not offer to do so.
“I came,” he said suddenly, “to give you a piece of news which I am afraid will not be very welcome.”
Sir John bowed his head gravely.
“You need not temper it,” he said, “to me.”
“Millicent and I have decided to make our engagement known,” retorted Jack at once.
Sir John bowed again. To any one but his son his suave acquiescence would have been maddening.
“I should have liked,” continued Jack, “to have done it with your consent.”
Sir John winced. He sat upright in his chair and threw back his shoulders. If Jack intended to continue in this way, there would be difficulties to face. Father and son were equally determined. Jack had proved too cunning a pupil. The old aristocrat's own lessons were being turned against him, and the younger man has, as it were, the light of the future shining upon his game in such a case as this, while the elder plays in the gathering gloom.
“You know,” said Sir John gravely, “that I am not much given to altering my opinions. I do not say that they are of any value; but, such as they are, I usually hold to them. When you did me the honour of mentioning this matter to me last year, I gave you my opinion.”
“And it has in no way altered?”
“In no way. I have found no reason to alter it.”
“Can you modify it?” asked Jack gently.
“No.”
“Not in any degree?”
Jack drew a deep breath.
“No.”
He emitted the breath slowly, making an effort so that it did not take the form of a sigh.
“Will you, at all events, give me your reasons?” he asked. “I am not a child.”
Sir John fumbled at his lips—he glanced sharply at his son.
“I think,” he said, “that it would be advisable not to ask them.”
“I should like to know why you object to my marrying Millicent,” persisted Jack.
“Simply because I know a bad woman when I see her,” retorted Sir John deliberately.
Jack raised his eyebrows. He glanced towards the door, as if contemplating leaving the room without further ado. But he sat quite still. It was wonderful how little it hurt him. It was more—it was significant. Sir John, who was watching, saw the glance and guessed the meaning of it. An iron self-control had been the first thing he had taught Jack—years before, when he was in his first knickerbockers. The lesson had not been forgotten.
“I am sorry you have said that,” said the son.
“Just,” continued the father, “as I know a good one.”
He paused, and they were both thinking of the same woman—Jocelyn Gordon.
Sir John had said his say about Millicent Chyne; and his son knew that that was the last word. She was a bad woman. From that point he would never move.
“I think,” said Jack, “that it is useless discussing that point any longer.”
“Quite. When do you intend getting married?”
“As soon as possible.”
“A mere question for the dressmaker?” suggested Sir John suavely.
“Yes.”
Sir John nodded gravely.
“Well,” he said, “you are, as you say, no longer a child—perhaps I forget that sometimes. If I do, I must ask you to forgive me. I will not attempt to dissuade you. You probably know your own affairs best—”
He paused, drawing his two hands slowly back on his knees, looking into the fire as if his life was written there.
“At all events,” he continued, “it has the initial recommendation of a good motive. I imagine it is what is called a love-match. I don't know much about such matters. Your mother, my lamented wife, was an excellent woman—too excellent, I take it, to be able to inspire the feeling in a mere human being—perhaps the angels... she never inspired it in me, at all events. My own life has not been quite a success within this room; outside it has been brilliant, active, full of excitement. Engineers know of machines which will stay upright so long as the pace is kept up; some of us are like that. I am not complaining. I have had no worse a time than my neighbours, except that it has lasted longer.”
He leant back suddenly in his chair with a strange little laugh. Jack was leaning forward, listening with that respect which he always accorded to his father.
“I imagine,” went on Sir John, “that the novelists and poets are not very far wrong. It seems that there is such a thing as a humdrum happiness in marriage. I have seen quite elderly people who seem still to take pleasure in each other's society. With the example of my own life before me, I wanted yours to be different. My motive was not entirely bad. But perhaps you know your own affairs best. What money have you?”
Jack moved uneasily in his chair.
“I have completed the sale of the last consignment of Simiacine,” he began categorically. “The demand for it has increased. We have now sold two hundred thousand pounds worth in England and America. My share is about sixty thousand pounds. I have invested most of that sum, and my present income is a little over two thousand a year.”
Sir John nodded gravely.
“I congratulate you,” he said; “you have done wonderfully well. It is satisfactory in one way, in that it shows that, if a gentleman chooses to go into these commercial affairs, he can do as well as the bourgeoisie. It leads one to believe that English gentlemen are not degenerating so rapidly as I am told the evening Radical newspapers demonstrate for the trifling consideration of one halfpenny. But”—he paused with an expressive gesture of the hand—“I should have preferred that this interesting truth had been proved by the son of some one else.”
“I think,” replied Jack, “that our speculation hardly comes under the category of commerce. It was not money that was at risk, but our own lives.”
Sir John's eyes hardened.
“Adventure,” he suggested rather indistinctly, “travel and adventure. There is a class of men one meets frequently who do a little exploring and a great deal of talking. Faute de mieux, they do not hesitate to interest one in the special pill to which they resort when indisposed, and they are not above advertising a soap. You are not going to write a book, I trust?”
“No. It would hardly serve our purpose to write a book.”
“In what way?” inquired Sir John.
“Our purpose is to conceal the whereabouts of the Simiacine Plateau.”
“But you are not going back there?” exclaimed Sir John unguardedly.
“We certainly do not intend to abandon it.”
Sir John leant forward again with his two hands open on his knees, thinking deeply.
“A married man,” he said, “could hardly reconcile it with his conscience to undertake such a perilous expedition.”
“No,” replied Jack, with quiet significance.
Sir John gave a forced laugh.
“I see,” he said, “that you have outwitted me. If I do not give my consent to your marriage without further delay, you will go back to Africa.”
Jack bowed his head gravely.
There was a long silence, while the two men sat side by side, gazing into the fire.
“I cannot afford to do that,” said the father at length; “I am getting too old to indulge in the luxury of pride. I will attend your marriage. I will smile and say pretty things to the bridesmaids. Before the world I will consent under the condition that the ceremony does not take place before two months from this date.”
“I agree to that,” put in Jack.
Sir John rose and stood on the hearthrug, looking down from his great height upon his son.
“But,” he continued, “between us let it be understood that I move in no degree from my original position. I object to Millicent Chyne as your wife. But I bow to the force of circumstances. I admit that you have a perfect right to marry whom you choose—in two months time.”
So Jack took his leave.
“In two months' time,” repeated Sir John, when he was alone, with one of his twisted, cynic smiles, “in two months time—qui vivra verra.”
Oh, fairest of creation, last and bestOf all God's works!
For one or two days after the public announcement of her engagement, Millicent was not quite free from care. She rather dreaded the posts. It was not that she feared one letter in particular, but the postman's disquietingly urgent rap caused her a vague uneasiness many times a day.
Sir John's reply to her appealing little letter came short and sharp. She showed it to no one.
“MY DEAR MISS CHYNE,—I hasten to reply to your kind letter of to-day announcing your approaching marriage with my son. There are a certain number of trinkets which have always been handed on from generation to generation. I will at once have these cleaned by the jeweller, in order that they may be presented to you immediately after the ceremony. Allow me to urge upon you the advisability of drawing up and signing a prenuptial marriage settlement.—Yours sincerely,
“JOHN MEREDITH.”
Millicent bit her pretty lip when she perused this note. She made two comments, at a considerable interval of time.
“Stupid old thing!” was the first; and then, after a pause, “I HOPE they are all diamonds.”
Close upon the heels of this letter followed a host of others. There was the gushing, fervent letter of the friend whose joy was not marred by the knowledge that a wedding present must necessarily follow. Those among one's friends who are not called upon to offer a more substantial token of joy than a letter are always the most keenly pleased to hear the news of an engagement. There was the sober sheet (crossed) from the elderly relative living in the country, who, never having been married herself, takes the opportunity of giving four pages of advice to one about to enter that parlous state. There was the fatherly letter from the country rector who christened Millicent, and thinks that he may be asked to marry her in a fashionable London church—and so to a bishopric. On heavily-crested stationery follow the missives of the ladies whose daughters would make sweet bridesmaids. Also the hearty congratulations of the slight acquaintance, who is going to Egypt for the winter, and being desirous of letting her house without having to pay one of those horrid agents, “sees no harm in mentioning it.” The house being most singularly suitable for a young married couple. Besides these, the thousand and one who wished to be invited to the wedding in order to taste cake and champagne at the time, and thereafter the sweeter glory of seeing their names in the fashionable news.
All these Millicent read with little interest, and answered in that conveniently large calligraphy which made three lines look like a note, and magnified a note into a four-page letter. The dressmakers' circulars—the tradesmen's illustrated catalogues of things she could not possibly want, and the jewellers' delicate photographs interested her a thousand times more. But even these did not satisfy her. All these people were glad—most of them were delighted. Millicent wanted to hear from those who were not delighted, not even pleased, but in despair. She wanted to hear more of the broken hearts. But somehow the broken hearts were silent. Could it be that they did not care? Could it be that THEY were only flirting? She dismissed these silly questions with the promptness which they deserved. It was useless to think of it in that way—more useless, perhaps, than she suspected; for she was not deep enough, nor observant enough, to know that the broken hearts in question had been much more influenced by the suspicion that she cared for them than by the thought that they cared for her. She did not know the lamentable, vulgar fact that any woman can be a flirt if she only degrade her womanhood to flattery. Men do not want to love so much as to be loved. Such is, moreover, their sublime vanity that they are ready to believe any one who tells them, however subtly—mesdames, you cannot be too subtle for a man's vanity to find your meaning—that they are not as other men.
To the commonplace observer it would, therefore, appear (erroneously, no doubt) that the broken hearts having been practically assured that Millicent Chyne did not care for them, promptly made the discovery that the lack of feeling was reciprocal. But Millicent did not, of course, adopt this theory. She knew better. She only wondered why several young men did not communicate, and she was slightly uneasy lest in their anger they should do or say something indiscreet.
There was no reason why the young people should wait. And when there is no reason why the young people should wait, there is every reason why they should not do so. Thus it came about that in a week or so Millicent was engaged in the happiest pursuit of her life. She was buying clothes without a thought of money. The full joy of the trousseau was hers. The wives of her guardians having been morally bought, dirt cheap, at the price of an anticipatory invitation to the wedding, those elderly gentlemen were with little difficulty won over to a pretty little femininely vague scheme of withdrawing just a little of the capital—said capital to be spent in the purchase of a really GOOD trousseau, you know. The word “good” emanating from such a source must, of course, be read as “novel,” which in some circles means the same thing.
Millicent entered into the thing in the right spirit. Whatever the future might hold for her—and she trusted that it might be full of millinery—she was determined to enjoy the living present to its utmost. Her life at this time was a whirl of excitement—excitement of the keenest order—namely, trying on.
“You do not know what it is,” she said, with a happy little sigh, to those among her friends who probably never would, “to stand the whole day long being pinned into linings by Madame Videpoche.”
And despite the sigh, she did it with an angelic sweetness of temper which quite touched the heart of Madame Videpoche, while making no difference in the bill.
Lady Cantourne would not have been human had she assumed the neutral in this important matter. She frankly enjoyed it all immensely.
“You know, Sir John,” she said in confidence to him one day at Hurlingham, “I have always dressed Millicent.”
“You need not tell me that,” he interrupted gracefully. “On ne peut s'y tromper.”
“And,” she went on almost apologetically, “whatever my own feelings on the subject may be, I cannot abandon her now. The world expects much from Millicent Chyne. I have taught it to do so. It will expect more from Millicent—Meredith.”
The old gentleman bowed in his formal way.
“And the world must not be disappointed,” he suggested cynically.
“No,” she answered, with an energetic little nod, “it must not. That is the way to manage the world. Give it what it expects; and just a little more to keep its attention fixed.”
Sir John tapped with his gloved finger pensively on the knob of his silver-mounted cane.
“And may I ask your ladyship,” he inquired suavely, “what the world expects of me?”
He knew her well enough to know that she never made use of the method epigrammatic without good reason.
“A diamond crescent,” she answered stoutly. “The fashion-papers must be able to write about the gift of the bridegroom's father.”
“Ah—and they prefer a diamond crescent?”
“Yes,” answered Lady Cantourne. “That always seems to satisfy them.”
He bowed gravely and continued to watch the polo with that marvellously youthful interest which was his.
“Does the world expect anything else?” he asked presently.
“No, I think not,” replied Lady Cantourne, with a bright little absent smile. “Not just now.”
“Will you tell me if it does?”
He had risen; for there were other great ladies on the ground to whom he must pay his old-fashioned respects.
“Certainly,” she answered, looking up at him.
“I should deem it a favour,” he continued. “If the world does not get what it expects, I imagine it will begin to inquire why; and if it cannot find reasons it will make them.”
In due course the diamond crescent arrived.
“It is rather nice of the old thing,” was Millicent's comment. She held the jewel at various angles in various lights. There was no doubt that this was the handsomest present she had received—sent direct from the jeweller's shop with an uncompromising card inside the case. She never saw the irony of it; but Sir John had probably not expected that she would. He enjoyed it alone—as he enjoyed or endured most things.
Lady Cantourne examined it with some curiosity.
“I have never seen such beautiful diamonds,” she said simply.
There were other presents to be opened and examined. For the invitations had not been sent out, and many were willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of being mentioned among the guests. It is, one finds, after the invitations have been issued that the presents begin to fall off.
But on this particular morning the other presents fell on barren ground. Millicent only half heeded them. She could not lay the diamond crescent finally aside. Some people have the power of imparting a little piece of their individuality to their letters, and even to a commonplace gift. Sir John was beginning to have this power over Millicent. She was rapidly falling into a stupid habit of feeling uneasy whenever she thought of him. She was vaguely alarmed at his uncompromising adherence to the position he had assumed. She had never failed yet to work her will with men—young and old—by a pretty persistence, a steady flattery, a subtle pleading manner. But Sir John had met all her wiles with his adamantine smile. He would not openly declare himself an enemy—which she argued to herself would have been much nicer of him. He was merely a friend of her aunt's, and from that contemplative position he never stepped down. She could not quite make out what he was “driving at,” as she herself put it. He never found fault, but she knew that his disapproval of her was the result of long and careful study. Perhaps in her heart—despite all her contradictory arguments—she knew that he was right.
“I wonder,” she said half-aloud, taking up the crescent again, “why he sent it to me?”
Lady Cantourne, who was writing letters at a terrible rate, glanced sharply up. She was beginning to be aware of Millicent's unspoken fear of Sir John. Moreover, she was clever enough to connect it with her niece's daily increasing love for the man who was soon to be her husband.
“Well,” she answered, “I should be rather surprised if he gave you nothing.”
There was a little pause, only broken by the scratching of Lady Cantourne's quill pen.
“Auntie!” exclaimed the girl suddenly, “why does he hate me? You have known him all your life—you must know why he hates me so.”
Lady Cantourne shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose,” went on Millicent with singular heat, “that some one has been telling him things about me—horrid things—false things—that I am a flirt, or something like that; I am sure I'm not.”
Lady Cantourne was addressing an envelope, and did not make any reply.
“Has he said anything to you, Aunt Caroline?” asked Millicent in an aggrieved voice.
Lady Cantourne laid aside her letter.
“No,” she answered slowly, “but I suppose there are things which he does not understand.”
“Things?”
Her ladyship looked up steadily.
“Guy Oscard, for instance,” she said; “I don't quite understand Guy Oscard, Millicent.”
The girl turned away impatiently. She was keenly alive to the advantage of turning her face away. For in her pocket she had at that moment a letter from Guy Oscard—the last relic of the old excitement which was so dear to her, and which she was already beginning to miss. Joseph had posted this letter in Msala nearly two months before. It had travelled down from the Simiacine Plateau with others, in a parcel beneath the mattress of Jack Meredith's litter. It was a letter written in good faith by an honest, devoted man to the woman whom he looked upon already as almost his wife—a letter which no man need have been ashamed of writing, but which a woman ought not to have read unless she intended to be the writer's wife.
Millicent had read this letter more than once. She liked it because it was evidently sincere. The man's heart could be heard beating in every line of it. Moreover, she had made inquiries that very morning at the Post Office about the African mail. She wanted the excitement of another letter like that.
“Oh, Guy Oscard!” she replied innocently to Lady Cantourne; “that was nothing.”
Lady Cantourne kept silence, and presently she returned to her letters.