Lady Connie Part 30

Falloden's expression stiffened.

"That's nonsense. If he's properly treated, he'll get all right. Besides it was a pure accident. How could any of us know those broken pipes were there?"

"Well, I shall be glad when we get Wood's opinion," said Meyrick gloomily. "It does seem hard lines on a fellow who plays that it should have been his hand. But of course--as you say, Duggy--it'll probably be all right. By the way, Sorell told me Radowitz had absolutely refused to let anybody in college know--any of the dons--and had forbidden Sorell himself to say a word."

"Well of course that's more damaging to us than any other line of action," said Falloden drily. "I don't know that I shall accept it--for myself. The facts had better be known."

"Well, you'd better think of the rest of us," said Meyrick. "It would hit Robertson uncommonly hard if he were sent down. If Radowitz is badly hurt, and the story gets out, they won't play him for the Eleven--"

"If he's badly hurt, it will get out," said Falloden coolly.

"Well, let it alone, anyway, till we see."

Falloden nodded--"Barring a private friend or two. Well, I must dress."

When he opened the door again, Meyrick was gone.

In an unbearable fit of restlessness, Falloden went out, pa.s.sed Marmion, looked into the quad which was absolutely silent and deserted, and found his way aimlessly to the Parks.

He must see Constance Bledlow, somehow, before the story reached her from other sources, and before everybody separated for the vac. A large Nuneham party had been arranged by the Mansons for the following day in honour of the ex-Amba.s.sador and his wife, who were prolonging their stay in Christ Church so as to enjoy the river and an Oxford without crowds or functions. Falloden was invited, and he knew that Constance had been asked. In his bitterness of the day before, after their quarrel in the wood, he had said to himself that he would certainly go down before the party. Now he thought he would stay.

Suddenly, as he was walking back along the Cherwell edge of the park, under a grey sky with threatening clouds, he became aware of a lady in front of him. Annoying or remorseful thought became in a moment excitement. It was impossible to mistake the springing step and tall slenderness of Constance Bledlow.

He rapidly weighed the pros and cons of overtaking her. It was most unlikely that she had yet heard of the accident. And yet she might have seen Sorell.

He made up his mind and quickened his pace. She heard the steps behind her and involuntarily looked round. He saw, with a pa.s.sionate delight, that she could not immediately hide the agitation with which she recognised him.

"Whither away?" he said as he took off his hat. "Were you up as late as I? And are b.a.l.l.s worth their headaches?"

She was clearly surprised by the ease and gaiety of his manner, and at the same time--he thought--inclined to resent his interruption of her walk, before she had made up her mind in what mood, or with what aspect to meet him next. But he gave her no time for further pondering. He walked beside her, while she coldly explained that she had taken Nora to meet some girl friends at the Cherwell boat-house, and was now hurrying back herself to pay some calls with her aunt in the afternoon.

"What a week you have had!" he said when she paused. "Is there anything left of you? I saw that you stayed very late last night."

She admitted it.

"As for me, of course, I thought the ball--intolerable. But that of course you know--you must know!" he added with a sudden vehement emphasis. "May I not even say that you intended it? You meant to scourge me, and you succeeded."

Constance laughed, though he perceived that her lip trembled a little.

"The scourging had, I think--compensations."

"You mean I took refuge with Mrs. Glendower? Yes, she was kind--and useful. She is an old friend--more of the family than mine. She is coming to stay at Flood in August."

"Indeed?" The tone was as cool as his own. There was a moment's pause.

Then Falloden turned another face upon her.

"Lady Constance!--I have something rather serious and painful to tell you--and I am glad of this opportunity to tell you before you hear it from any one else. There was a row in college last night, or rather this morning, after the ball, and Otto Radowitz was hurt."

The colour rushed into Connie's face. She stopped. All around them the park stretched, grey and empty. There was no one in sight on the path where they had met.

"But not seriously," she breathed.

"His hand was hurt in the scuffle!"

Constance gave a cry.

"His hand!"

"Yes. I knew you'd feel that. It was a horrible shame--and a pure accident. But you'd better know the whole truth. It was a rag, and I was in it. But, of course, n.o.body had the smallest intention of hurting Radowitz."

"No--only of persecuting and humiliating him!" cried Constance, her eyes filling with tears. "His hand!--oh, how horrible! If it were really injured, if it hindered his music--if it stopped it--it would just kill him!"

"Very likely it is only a simple injury which will quickly heal," said Falloden coldly. "Sorell has taken him up to town this afternoon to see the best man he can get. We shall know to-morrow, but there is really no reason to expect anything--dreadful."

"How did it happen?"

"We tried to duck him in Neptune--the college fountain. There was a tussle, and his hand was cut by a bit of broken piping. You perhaps don't know that he made a speech last week, attacking several of us in a very offensive way. The men in college got hold of it last night. A man who does that kind of thing runs risks."

"He was only defending himself!" cried Constance. "He has been ragged, and bullied, and ill-treated--again and again--just because he is a foreigner and unlike the rest of you. And you have been the worst of any--you know you have! And I have begged you to let him alone! And if--if you had really been my friend--you would have done it--only to please me!"

"I happened to be more than your friend!"--said Falloden pa.s.sionately.

"Now let me speak out! You danced with Radowitz last night, dance after dance--so that it was the excitement, the event of the ball--and you did it deliberately to show me that I was nothing to you--nothing!--and he, at any rate, was something. Well!--I began to see red. You forget--that"--he spoke with difficulty--"my temperament is not exactly saintly. You have had warning, I think, of that often. When I got back to college, I found a group of men in the quad reading the skit in _The New Oxonian_. Suddenly Radowitz came in upon us. I confess I lost my head. Oh, yes, I could have stopped it easily. On the contrary, I led it. But I must ask you--because I have so much at stake!--was I alone to blame?--Was there not some excuse?--had you no part in it?"

He stood over her, a splendid accusing figure, and the excited girl beside him was bewildered by the adroitness with which he had carried the war into her own country.

"How mean!--how ungenerous!" Her agitation would hardly let her speak coherently. "When we were riding, you ordered me--yes, it was practically that!--you warned me, in a manner that n.o.body--_n.o.body_ --has any right to use with me--unless he were my fiance or my husband--that I was not to dance with Otto Radowitz--I was not to see so much of Mr. Sorell. So just to show you that I was really not at your beck and call--that you could not do exactly what you liked with me--I danced with Mr. Radowitz last night, and I refused to dance with you.

Oh, yes, I know I was foolish--I daresay I was in a temper too--but how you can make that any excuse for your attack on that poor boy--how you can make me responsible, if--"

Her voice failed her. But Falloden saw that he had won some advantage, and he pushed on.

"I only want to point out that a man is not exactly a stock or a stone to be played with as you played with me last night. Those things are dangerous! Can you deny--that you have given me some reason to hope--since we met again--to hope confidently, that you might change your mind? Would you have let me arrange those rides for you--unknown to your friends--would you have met me in the woods, those heavenly times--would you have danced with me as you did--would you have let me pay you in public every sort of attention that a man can pay to a girl, when he wants to marry her, the night of the Marmion ball--if you had not felt something for me--if you had not meant to give me a little hope--to keep the thing at least uncertain? No!--if this business does turn out badly, I shall have remorse enough, G.o.d knows--but you can't escape! If you punish me for it, if I alone am to pay the penalty, it will be not only Radowitz that has a grievance--not only Radowitz whose life will have been spoilt!"

She turned to him--hypnotised, subdued, by the note of fierce accusation--by that self-pity of the egotist--which looked out upon her from the young man's pale face and tense bearing.

"No"--she said trembling--"no--it is quite true--I have treated you badly. I have behaved wilfully and foolishly. But that was no reason--no excuse--"

"What's the good of talking of 'reason'--or excuse'?" Falloden interrupted violently. "Do you understand that I am in love with you--and what that means to a man? I tore myself away from Oxford, because I knew that if I stayed another day within reach of you--after that first ride--I should lose my cla.s.s--disappoint my father--and injure my career. I could think of nothing but you--dream of nothing but you. And I said to myself that my success--my career--might after all be your affair as well as mine. And so I went. And I'm not going to boast of what it cost me to go, knowing that other people would be seeing you--influencing you--perhaps setting you against me--all the time I was away. But then when I came back, I couldn't understand you. You avoided me. It was nothing but check after check--which you seemed to enjoy inflicting. At last, on the night of our ball I seemed to see clear. On that night, I did think--yes, I did think, that I was something to you!--that you could not have been so sweet--so adorable--in the sight of the whole world--unless you had meant that--in time it would all come right. And so next day, on our ride, I took the tone I did. I was a fool; of course. All men are, when they strike too soon. But if you had had any real feeling in your heart for me--if you had cared one ten-thousandth part for me, as I care for you, you couldn't have treated me as you did last night--so outrageously--so cruelly!"

The strong man beside her was now trembling from head to foot.

Constance, hard-pressed, conscience-struck, utterly miserable, did not know what to reply. Falloden went on impetuously:

"And now at least don't decide against me without thinking--without considering what I have been saying. Of course the whole thing may blow over. Radowitz may be all right in a fortnight. But if he is not--if between us, we've done something sad and terrible, let's stand together, for G.o.d's sake!--let's help each other. Neither of us meant it. Don't let's make everything worse by separating and stabbing each other. I shall hear what has happened by to-night. Let me come and bring you the news. If there's no great harm done--why--you shall tell me what kind of letter to write to Radowitz. I'm in your hands. But if it's bad--if there's blood-poisoning and Radowitz loses his hand--that they say is the worst that can happen--I of course shall feel like hanging myself--everybody will, who was in the row. But next to him, to Radowitz himself, whom should you pity more than--the man--who--was three parts to blame--for injuring him?"

His hoa.r.s.e voice dropped. They came simultaneously, involuntarily to a standstill. Constance was shaken by alternate waves of feeling. Half of what he said seemed to her insolent sophistry; but there was something else which touched--which paralysed her. For the first time she knew that this had been no mere game she had been playing with Douglas Falloden. Just as Falloden in his careless selfishness might prove to have broken Otto Radowitz's life, as a pa.s.sionate child breaks a toy, so she had it in her power to break Falloden.

They had wandered down again, without knowing it, to the banks of the river, and were standing in the shelter of a group of young chestnuts, looking towards the hills, over which hung great thunder-clouds.

At last Constance held out her hand.