A Double Knot Part 37

He almost forced her to hold out her hand to him as she sat up, by extending his own, and he took it and raised it respectfully to his lips.

"But where is Frank?" he asked.

"My husband dines out this evening," said Renee coldly.

"Indeed! how unfortunate! He asked me to run over one evening for a cup of coffee and a cigar. Perhaps he will return soon."

"Not till quite late," said Renee, who tried hard not to show that she was troubled by the visit.

"I am so glad to see you better, Renee," he said, taking a chair near her, and speaking in a low, earnest voice.

Renee started, for it was the first time since her marriage that he had called her by her name; and as she met his eyes she felt that it was also the first time since the same event that he had gazed at her with such bold admiration.

What could she do? She could not bid him leave her; and, besides, she felt that in a few minutes his gentlemanly instincts must lead him to go, and, indeed, what was there to fear? He was a gentleman--a friend of her husband--and he had called to see them.

"How times are changed, Renee!" he said, after a pause, as he gazed at her pensively. "Once your eyes used to brighten and the colour flushed into your cheek when I came near. Now, is it a dream--a trick of fancy?

I find you another's, and you turn from me with coldness."

"Major Malpas," said Renee quietly, "is this a suitable way of addressing the wife of your friend?"

The mask fell off at these words.

"Friend!" he cried bitterly, as he drew his chair close to the couch on which she sat; "he is no friend of mine. Friend! What, the man who has robbed me of all that was dear--who has made my life a desert! Friend?

Renee, you mock me by using such a word."

"Major Malpas!" she cried loudly.

"Hus.h.!.+" he exclaimed, throwing down his hat. "Hear me now, for the time has come, and I must speak, even though it be to wound the heart of the tenderest and sweetest of women. Renee, can I call the man friend who deliberately forsakes you for the society of a notorious woman--an actress!"

"Friend? No," cried Renee with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, as she rose to ring; but he caught her wrist and stayed her. "No; nor he you, if this is your friends.h.i.+p--to come and blacken my husband's name with foul calumny to his wife."

"Stop!" he said. "You shall not ring. Calumny! foul! Is it a foul calumny to say that he was driving her in the Park to-day, that he is dining with her and her friends to-night? Shame, Renee, that you should speak thus to the man who has ever been your faithful slave."

"Major Malpas, I insist upon your leaving me this instant. There is the door!"

"Leave you! No," he cried, seizing her other hand, as he fell upon his knees at her feet, "not till I have told you, Renee, that the old love never died in my heart, but has grown up stronger, day by day, till it has mastered my very being."

That same night there was a party given by Madame Dorinde, limited to eight, fairly balanced between the s.e.xes. The dinner was to be good, the supply of wines very liberal, especially as they cost the hostess nothing.

But they were a curious collection of guests, such as would have puzzled a student of human nature. Certainly he would have understood the status of Madame Dorinde, a handsome, showy woman, with plenty of smart repartee on her lips, and an abundance of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds for neck, arms and fingers--the gifts of the admirers of her histrionic powers. He would have told you that this would be a bright and gay career for a few years, and then probably she would drop out of sight.

There was a pretty, fair girl with good features and the glow of youth on her cheeks, putting to shame the additions of paint, and who seemed to think it right to laugh loudly and boisterously at everything said to her; there was Miss Grace Lister, the first burlesque actress of the day, dark, almost gipsy-looking in her swarthy complexion, whose colour was heightened by the novelty and excitement of the scene; Lottie Deloraine, _nee_ Simpkins, of the Marquise Theatre; Frank Morrison and a couple of washed-out habitues of the stalls lounged about the room, and the a.s.sembled company were beginning to wonder why dinner was not announced.

"What are we waiting for, Dory?" said Morrison at last. "Aren't we all here?"

"Only for an old friend of mine. You know him--John Huish," said the hostess rather maliciously; and then she added to herself, "He'll keep your eyes off Gracy Lister, my gentleman."

Morrison screwed up his face a little, laughed in a curious way, uttered the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n "Oh!" and then smiled as the door was opened and a smart soubrette loudly announced "Mr John Huis.h.!.+" the bearer of that name entering hurriedly, looking flushed and full of apologies, which were at once received and the dinner commenced.

It was intended to be free and easy and full of spirit; but somehow it seemed as if a spirit of discontent had crept in, and from time to time, though there was no open unpleasantly, flashes of annoyance played like the summer lightning which prefaces a storm over the table with its sparkling gla.s.s.

Madame Dorinde had a great favour to ask of her admirer, Frank Morrison, and sought to put him in the best of humours; but to her great annoyance she found him preoccupied, for his attention had from the first moment been taken up by Grace Lister, and his eyes were being constantly turned in her direction as, after a time, forgetting past troubles and neglect in the gaiety and excitement of the scene, Madame Dorinde looked brighter and more animated than she had seemed for weeks.

All this annoyed Huish, who was not long in detecting the glances directed by Frank Morrison at the glowing beauty of Grace, and he was the more annoyed because, just before dinner, he had whispered to the giver of the feast:

"Have the cards on the table as soon as you can. You propose."

"There will be no cards to-night, my friend, so you need not expect to win any money," the hostess had replied; and the young man had bitten his lip, and sat thinking how he could turn the little party to his own account.

"Why, I say, Huish," Morrison cried gaily, a little later on, "what a canting humbug you are! I never thought to meet you at a party like this;" and he smiled significantly. "We always thought you were a kind of saint."

"I am--sometimes."

"It's wonderful," sneered Morrison.

"Yes, it is a wonder, my dear fellow; but you set me such an example."

The two habitues of the stalls nodded to one another their approbation of the retort, and Madame Dorinde, to calm what threatened to be one ebullition with another, called for champagne.

As the dinner went on, the elements of discord began to leaven the party with greater effect, and a calm observer would have felt sure that the evening would not pa.s.s away without a quarrel. Morrison slighted his hostess more than once, and a redder spot burned in her cheeks right in the centre of a rather unnatural tint, while Huish, out of sheer bravado, on seeing how Morrison kept trying to draw Grace into conversation, directed his to Madame Dorinde.

"By the way, why hasn't Malpas come?" said Morrison at last. "I expected to see him here with little Merelle."

"Better employed, perhaps," said Madame Dorinde tartly; and the young girl with the youthful look laughed very heartily.

"I say, Huish," said Morrison at last, on finding that his attentions to Grace were resented by her companion, "I shall see little fair somebody to-morrow. You know whom I mean. What tales I might tell!"

"Tell them, then," said Huish sharply; "perhaps I shall retort by telling too."

"Oh, tut, tut, tut!" cried Dorinde. "n.o.body tells tales out of school."

"This is not the School for Scandal, then," said one of the habitues of the stalls; and the fair young lady laughed again.

"I say, Dorinde," said Morrison at last, rather uneasily, "why is not Malpas here?" and as he spoke he directed a peculiar smile at Grace.

Huish drew his breath hard, but said nothing. He set one of the _menu_ cards close to his plate, wrote something on the back, and, waiting his time, doubled it up at last.

"Give that to the gentleman opposite," he whispered to a waiter, slipping a florin into the man's hand. "Don't say where it came from."

The man nodded, and Huish turned to chat gaily with Dorinde; then, filling his gla.s.s slowly, he directed a sidelong glance at Morrison as he took the card, glanced at its writing, crushed it up in his hand, and closed his eyes, as a spasm ran through his countenance and he turned pale as death.

No one else noticed it, and he opened his eyes and glanced quickly round to see that the company were all busily conversing. Then, rising quietly, he left the room, walked slowly to the lobby of the great building, where he had left hat and coat, and went out of the house.

Then he let his excitement have its full vent.

"Hansom!" he shouted, leaping into the first he saw. "Chesham Place-- double fare--gallop."

The horse dashed off in answer to the sharp cut of the whip, and as it tore along Piccadilly Frank Morrison strove to get rid of the fumes of the wine he had been drinking, and to think calmly.