Mrs. Geoffrey Part 63

"If--if _you_ loved a fellow, would anything turn you against him?" asks he, suddenly, looking her full in the face.

And she answers,--

"Nothing. Not all the talking in the wide world," with a brilliant blush, but with steady earnest eyes.

Nolly, mistrustful of Geoffrey's silence, goes up to him, and, laying his hands upon his shoulders, says, quietly,--

"Mrs. Geoffrey is incapable of making any mistake. How silent you are, old fellow!"

"Eh?" says Geoffrey, rousing himself and smiling genially. "A mistake?

Oh, no. She never makes mistakes. I was thinking of something else. But she really ought to be in now, you know; she will catch her death of cold."

The utter want of suspicion in his tone drives Lady Rodney to open action. To do her justice, dislike to Mona has so warped her judgment that she almost believes in the evil she seeks to disseminate about her.

"You are wilfully blind," she says, flus.h.i.+ng hotly, and smoothing with nervous fingers an imaginary wrinkle from her gown. "Of course I explained matters as well as I could to Mitch.e.l.l, but it was very awkward, and very unpleasant, and servants are never deceived."

"I hardly think I follow you," says Geoffrey, in a frozen tone. "In regard to what would you wish your servants deceived?"

"Of course it is quite the correct thing your taking it in this way,"

goes on his mother, refusing to be warned, and speaking with irritation,--"the only course left open; but it is rather absurd with _me_. We have all noticed your wife's extraordinary civility to that shocking young man. Such bad taste on her part, considering how he stands with regard to us, and the unfortunate circ.u.mstances connected with him. But no good ever comes of unequal marriages."

"Now, once for all, mother--" begins Nicholas, vehemently, but Geoffrey, with a gesture, silences him.

"I am perfectly content, nay more than content, with the match I have made," he says, haughtily; "and if you are alluding to Paul Rodney, I can only say I have noticed nothing reprehensible in Mona's treatment of him."

"You are very much to be admired," says his mother, in an abominable tone.

"I see no reason why she should not talk to any man she pleases. I know her well enough to trust her anywhere, and am deeply thankful for such knowledge. In fact," with some pa.s.sion, sudden but subdued, "I feel as though in discussing her in this cold-blooded fas.h.i.+on I am doing her some grievous wrong."

"It almost amounts to it," says Nicholas, with a frown.

"Besides, I do not understand what you mean," says Geoffrey, still regarding his mother with angry eyes "Why connect Mona's absence with Paul Rodney?"

"I shall tell you," exclaims she, in a higher tone, her pale-blue eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "Two hours ago my own maid received a note from Paul Rodney's man directed to your wife. When she read it she dressed herself and went from this house in the direction of the wood. If you cannot draw your own conclusions from these two facts, you must be duller or more obstinate than I give you credit for."

She ceases, her work accomplished. The others in the room grow weak with fear, as they tell themselves that things are growing too dreadful to be borne much longer. When the silence is quite insupportable, poor little Dorothy struggles to the front.

"Dear Lady Rodney," she says, in a tremulous tone, "are you quite sure the note was from that--that man?"

"Quite sure," returns her future mother-in law, grimly. "I never speak, Dorothy, without foundation for what I say."

Dorothy, feeling snubbed, subsides into silence and the shadow that envelopes the lounge on which she is sitting.

To the surprise of everybody, Geoffrey takes no open notice of his mother's speech. He does not give way to wrath, nor does he open his lips on any subject. His face is innocent of anger, horror, or distrust.

It changes, indeed, beneath the glow of the burning logs but in a manner totally unexpected. An expression that might even be termed hope lights it up. Like this do his thoughts run: "Can it be possible that the Australian has caved in, and, fearing publicity after last night's _fiasco_, surrendered the will to Mona?"

Possessed with this thought,--which drowns all others,--he clasps his hands behind his back and saunters to the window. "Shall he go and meet Mona and learn the truth at once? Better not, perhaps; she is such a clever child that it is as well to let her achieve victory without succor of any sort."

He leans against the window and looks out anxiously upon the darkening twilight. His mother watches him with curious eyes. Suddenly he electrifies the whole room by whistling in a light and airy fas.h.i.+on his favorite song from "Madame Favart." It is the "Artless Thing," and nothing less, and he whistles it deliberately and dreamily from start to finish.

It seems such a direct running commentary on Mona's supposed ill deed that every one--as by a single impulse--looks up. Nolly and Jack Rodney exchange covert glances. But for the depression that reigns all round, I think these two would have given way to frivolous merriment.

"By Jove, you know, it is odd," says Geoffrey, presently, speaking as one might who has for long been following out a train of thought by no means unpleasant, "his sending for her, and that: there must be something in it. Rodney didn't write to her for nothing. It must have been to----" Here he checks himself abruptly, remembering his promise to Mona to say nothing about the scene in the library. "It certainly means something," he winds up, a little tamely.

"No doubt," returns his mother, sneeringly.

"My dear mother," says Geoffrey, coming back to the firelight, "what you would insinuate is too ridiculous to be taken any notice of." Every particle of his former pa.s.sion has died from his voice, and he is now quite calm, nay cheerful.

"But at the same time I must ask you to remember you are speaking of my wife."

"I do remember it," replies she, bitterly.

Just at this moment a light step running up the stairs outside and across the veranda makes itself heard. Every one looks expectant, and the slight displeasure dies out of Geoffrey's face. A slender, graceful figure appears at the window, and taps lightly.

"Open the window, Geoff," cries Mona, eagerly, and as he obeys her commands she steps into the room with a certain touch of haste about her movements, and looks round upon them earnestly,--some peculiar expression, born of a glad thought, rendering her lovely face even more perfect than usual.

There is a smile upon her lips; her hands are clasped behind her.

"I am so glad you have come, darling," says little Dorothy, taking off her hat, and laying it on a chair near her.

Geoffrey removes the heavy lace that lies round her throat, and then leads her up to the hearthrug nearly opposite to his mother's arm-chair.

"Where have you been, Mona?" he asks, quietly, gazing into the great honest liquid eyes raised so willingly to his own.

"You shall guess," says Mrs. Geoffrey, gayly, with a little laugh. "Now, where do you think?"

Geoffrey says nothing. But Sir Nicholas, as though impulsively, says,--

"In the wood?"

Perhaps he is afraid for her. Perhaps it is a gentle hint to her that the truth will be best. Whatever it may be, Mona understands him not at all. His mother glances up sharply.

"Why, so I was," says Mona, opening her eyes with some surprise, and with an amused smile. "What a good guess, and considering how late the hour is, too!"

She smiles again. Lady Rodney, watching her intently, tells herself if this is acting it is the most perfectly done thing she ever saw in her life, either on the stage or off it.

Geoffrey's arm slips from his wife's shoulders to her rounded waist.

"Perhaps, as you have been so good at your first guess you will try again," says Mona, still addressing Nicholas, and speaking in a tone of unusual light-heartedness, but so standing that no one can see why her hands are so persistently clasped behind her back. "Now tell me who I was with."

This is a thunderbolt. They all start guiltily, and regard Mona with wonder. What is she going to say next?

"So," she says, mockingly, laughing at Nicholas, "you cannot play the seer any longer? Well, I shall tell you. I was with Paul Rodney!"

She is plainly quite enchanted with the sensation she is creating, though she is far from comprehending how complete that sensation is.

Something in her expression appeals to Doatie's heart and makes her involuntarily go closer to her. Her face is transfigured. It is full of love and unselfish joy and happy exultation: always lovely, there is at this moment something divine about her beauty.

"What have you got behind your back?" says Geoffrey, suddenly, going up to her.