The Gambler Part 42

Milbanke looked distressed.

"But, my dear----"

"Yes, I know you hate society. But just this once--I--I _wish_ you to come----"

She made the appeal with a sudden anxious gesture, born of a very subtle, a very instinctive motive--a motive that had for its basis an obscure and quite unacknowledged sense of self-protection.

Milbanke--materialist born--heard only the words, noting nothing of the undermeaning.

"But, my dear," he expostulated, "the thing is--is impossible. Mr.

Angelo Tomes has promised to expound his theories to me after dinner to-night----"

He looked at her nervously.

She was silent for a minute or two--suddenly and profoundly conscious that, in all the radiant glory of her surroundings, she stood alone. At the painful consciousness, she felt her throat swell, but with a defiant refusal to be conquered by her feelings, she gave a quick, high laugh.

"Oh, very well!" she cried--"very well! As you like!"

And without looking at him again, she turned and entered the coffee-room of the hotel.

Having partaken very hastily of her morning meal, she returned to the terrace, where--among the other early loungers--she found Barnard, reading his English newspapers. Seeing her, he threw the papers down, jumped to his feet, and came forward with evident pleasure.

"Good-morning!" he said cordially--"good-morning. You look as fresh as a flower, after last night's dissipation."

She took his hand and met his suave smile with a sense of relief.

"Good-morning!" she returned softly. "Have you seen James? He breakfasted hours ago."

"Yes," he said--"oh yes! I was talking to him just now. He has gone to write letters."

"To write letters!"

There was no curiosity and very little interest audible in Clodagh's tone.

"So he said. And you? What are you going to do?"

She looked up and smiled again.

"To idle," she said. "I have an inherited gift for idling."

Barnard smiled, then glanced along the terrace with an air of pretended secrecy.

"Take me into partners.h.i.+p!" he said in a whisper. "My clients don't know it, but I'm const.i.tutionally the laziest beggar alive. Do let me idle in your company for half an hour? The ca.n.a.ls are delightful in the early morning----"

He indicated the flight of stone steps, round which one or two gondolas were hovering in expectation of a fare.

Clodagh's glance followed his; and her face insensibly brightened.

"I should love it," she said.

"Truly?"

She nodded.

"Right! Then the thing is done."

He hurried forward. And with a little thrill of pleasureable antic.i.p.ation, she saw one of the loitering gondolas glide up to the steps.

For the first few moments after they had entered the boat, she was silent; for in the iridescent morning light, Venice made a new appeal; then gradually--insidiously--as the charm of her surroundings began to soothe her senses, the encounter with Milbanke melted from her mind; and the subtle environment bred of last night's adulation rose again, turning the world golden.

As they pa.s.sed the Palazzo Ugochini, she looked up at the closed windows of the first floor; then almost immediately she turned to her companion.

"Mr. Barnard," she said suddenly, "I want to ask you a question. I want you to explain something."

And Barnard, closely studious of her demeanour, felt insensibly that her mood had changed--that, by a fine connection of suggestions, she was not the same being who had stepped into the gondola from the hotel steps. With a genial movement, he bent his head.

"Command me!" he said.

Before replying, she took another swift glance at the closed windows; then she turned again and met his eyes.

"Tell me why this friend of Lady Frances Hope's is called 'Sir Galahad'?"

He smiled.

"Gore?" he said with slightly amused surprise. "I didn't know you were interested in Gore."

"I am not. But please tell me. I want to know!"

His smile broadened.

"The nick-name surely explains itself."

"Somebody with an ideal? Somebody above temptation?"

"Precisely."

She pondered over this reply for a moment; then she opened a fresh attack.

"Then why should Lord Deerehurst and Mr. Serracauld have smiled when they spoke of his meeting me?"

Barnard looked up in unfeigned astonishment; then he laughed.

"Upon my word, Mrs. Milbanke," he cried, "you are absolutely unique!"

Clodagh flushed. For one second she wavered on the borderland of offence; then her mood--her sense of the ridiculous and the sunny atmosphere of the morning--conquered. She responded with a laugh.

"I suppose I'm not like other people," she said.

"--For which you should say grace every hour of your life!" Barnard turned and looked into her glowing face. "But I'll satisfy your curiosity. Gore is known in his own set as a man who obstinately--and against all reason--refuses to believe in--well, for instance, in the interesting young married woman."