The Knave of Diamonds Part 82

Nap stirred restlessly, and was silent.

"How long are you going to be away?" Capper asked.

"I don't know."

"For long?"

Nap's hand jerked impatiently from the doctor's hold. "Possibly for ever."

Capper's long fingers began to crack. He looked speculative. "Say, Nap,"

he said suddenly, "we may not be exactly sympathetic, you and I, but I guess we've pulled together long enough to be fairly intimate. Anyway, I've conceived a sort of respect for you that I never expected to have.

And if you'll take a word of advice from a friend who wishes you well, you won't regret it."

The thin lips began to smile. "Delighted to listen to your advice, Doctor. I suspect I'm not obliged to follow it."

"You will please yourself, no doubt," Capper rejoined drily. "But my advice is, don't stay away too long. Your place is here."

"You think so?" said Nap.

"I am quite sure," Capper said, with emphasis.

"And you think I shall please myself by going?"

"Who else?" said Capper almost sternly.

Nap did not instantly reply. He was lying back with his face in shadow.

When he spoke at length it was with extreme deliberation. Capper divined that it was an effort to him to speak at all.

"You're a family friend," he said. "I guess you've a right to know. It isn't for my own sake I'm going at all. It's for--hers, and because of a promise I made to Luke. If I were to stop, I'd be a cur--and worse. She'd take me without counting the cost. She is a woman who never thinks of herself. I've got to think for her. I've sworn to play the straight game, and I'll play it. That's why I won't so much as look into her face again till I know that I can be to her what Luke would have been--what Bertie is to Dot--what every man who is a man ought to be to the woman he has made his wife."

He flung his arms up above his head and remained tense for several seconds. Then abruptly he relaxed.

"I'll be a friend to her," he said, "a friend that she can trust--or nothing!"

There came a very kindly look into Capper's green eyes, but he made no comment of any sort. He only turned aside to take up the gla.s.s he had set down on entering. And as he did so, he smiled as a man well pleased.

Once during the night he looked in upon Nap and found him sleeping, wrapt in a deep and silent slumber, motionless as death. He stood awhile watching the harsh face with its grim mouth and iron jaw, and slowly a certain pity dawned in his own. The man had suffered infernally before he had found his manhood. He had pa.s.sed through raging fires that had left their mark upon him for the rest of his life.

"It's been an almighty big struggle, poor devil," said Capper, "but it's made a man of you."

He left early on the following day, accompanied by Tawny Hudson, whose docility was only out-matched by his very obvious desire to be gone.

True to her promise, Anne was down in time to take leave of Capper. They stood together for a moment on the steps before parting. Her hand in his, he looked straight into her quiet eyes.

"You're not grieving any, Lady Carfax?"

"No," she said.

"I guess you're right," said Maurice Capper gravely. "We make our little bids for happiness, but it helps one to remember that the issue lies with G.o.d."

She gave him a smile of understanding. "'He knows about it all--He knows--He knows,'" she quoted softly. And Capper went his way, taking with him the memory of a woman who still ploughed her endless furrow, but with a heart at peace.

CHAPTER XX

THE PROMOTION OF THE QUEEN'S JESTER

"My!" said Mrs. Errol. "Isn't he just dear?"

There was a cooing note in her deep voice. She sat in the Dower House garden with her grandson bolt upright upon her knees, and all the birds of June singing around her.

"Isn't he dear, Anne?" she said.

Anne, who was dangling a bunch of charms for the baby's amus.e.m.e.nt, stooped and kissed the sunny curls.

"He's a lord of creation," she said. "And he knows it already. I never saw such an upright morsel in my life."

"Lucas was like that," said Mrs. Errol softly. "He was just the loveliest baby in the U.S.A. Everyone said so. Dot dearie, I'm sort of glad you called him Luke."

"So am I, mater dearest. And he's got Luke's eyes, hasn't he now? Bertie said so from the very beginning." Eagerly Dot leaned from her chair to turn her small son's head to meet his grandmother's scrutiny. "I'd rather he were like Luke than anyone else in the world," she said. "It isn't treason to Bertie to say so, for he wants it too. Where is Bertie, I wonder? He had to go to town, but he promised to be back early for his boy's first birthday-party. It's such an immense occasion, isn't it?"

Her round face dimpled in the way Bertie most loved. She rose and slipped a hand through Anne's arm.

"Let's go and look for him. I know he can't be long now. The son of the house likes having his granny to himself. He never cries with her."

They moved away together through the sunlit garden, Dot chattering gaily as her fas.h.i.+on was about nothing in particular while Anne walked beside her in sympathetic silence. Anne was never inattentive though there were some who deemed her unresponsive.

But as they neared the gate Dot's volubility quite suddenly died down.

She plucked a white rose, to fill in the pause and fastened it in her friend's dress. Her fingers trembled unmistakably as she did it, and Anne looked at her inquiringly. "Is anything the matter?"

"No. Why?" said Dot, turning very red.

Anne smiled a little. "I feel as if a bird had left off singing," she said.

Dot laughed, still with hot cheeks. "What a pretty way of putting it!

Bertie isn't nearly so complimentary. He calls me the magpie, which is really very unfair, for he talks much more than I do. Dear old Bertie!"

The dimples lingered, and Anne bent suddenly and kissed them. "Dear little Dot!" she said.

Instantly Dot's arms were very tightly round her. "Anne darling, I've got something to tell you--something you very possibly won't quite like. You won't be vexed any, will you?"

"Not any," smiled Anne.

"No, but it isn't a small thing. It--it's rather immense. But Bertie said I was to tell you, because you are not to be taken by surprise again. He doesn't think it fair, and of course he's right."