A Young Mutineer Part 21

"As if I could mind--you know better. But, Hilda, if you have tea now you won't be hungry for your dinner."

Judy puckered her dark brows with anxiety.

"I'm not going to have dinner."

"You aren't--not really! then what will Jasper say?"

"I've had a little letter from Jasper, darling; he is obliged to be out late on business, and won't dine at home to-night. Ah, here comes Susan with another new-laid egg for me, and some fresh toast. Now I am going to have a delightful little supper in your company, Judy, and then I shall settle you for the night."

Hilda talked faster than was her wont; there was an additional rose-color in her pretty cheeks, and a brighter light than usual in her soft brown eyes. She laughed and jested and made merry over her egg and toast.

"How pretty you look!" said Judy, with a heart-whole sigh of admiration and content.

She saw nothing wrong, and Hilda kissed her and left the room a few minutes later.

She was still wearing her heavy traveling-dress, but after a moment's reflection she went into her bedroom, and quickly changed it for a pale silk dress of the softest shade of rose. This dress was a special favorite of her husband's; he used to liken her to a rosebud in it, and said that no color more truly matched the soft tender bloom of her young face.

Hilda put on the rose silk now, arranged her dark hair picturesquely, and going downstairs to the little drawing room, occupied herself for an hour or more in giving it some of those delicate touches which make the difference between the mistress of the house being at home and away.

It was a very warm evening for the time of year, but Hilda had a fire lit in the grate. The shaded lamp shed a softened golden glow in its accustomed corner of the room, and Jasper's favorite chair was placed ready for his reception; then Hilda sank down into her own easy-chair, and taking up a book, tried to read.

Susan came presently into the room.

"Oh, Susan," said her mistress, "I was about to ring for you. It has struck ten o'clock; you and cook are to go to bed, please; I will wait up for Mr. Quentyns."

"If you please, ma'am," said Susan.

She stopped and hesitated.

"Yes, Susan?" answered Mrs. Quentyns, in a gentle interrogative tone.

"If you please, ma'am, master has been very late coming home when you was in the country--not till past midnight most nights."

"Thank you, Susan; but Mr. Quentyns will probably be in earlier to-night, and I wish to remain up. Go to bed, and tell cook to do the same. Oh, and please, I should like Miss Judy to have a cup of tea brought to her room at eight to-morrow morning. Good-night, Susan."

The parlor-maid withdrew.

"And don't she look beautiful as a pictur," she muttered under her breath. "Pore young lady, I doubt if she's pleased with master though.

Him staying away and all on the first night as she comes back. I wouldn't set up for him ef I were her--no, that I wouldn't; I wouldn't make so little of myself; but she's proud, too, is Mrs. Quentyns, and she don't let on; no, not a bit. Well, I respect her for that, but I mis...o...b.. me if all is right atween that pair."

Susan went upstairs to confide her suspicions to cook. They talked in low whispers together, and wondered what the mystery could be which was keeping Quentyns from his pretty wife's side.

In the meantime, in the silent house the moments for the one anxious watcher went slowly by. Her novel was not interesting--she let it fall on her knees, and looking at the little clock on the mantelpiece, counted the moments until eleven should strike. She quite expected that Jasper would be home at eleven. It did not enter for a moment into her calculations that he could be absent on this first night of her return beyond that hour. When the eleven musical strokes sounded on the little clock, and were echoed in many deeper booms from without, she got up, and opening the drawing-room door, stepped out into the little hall.

Footsteps kept pa.s.sing and pa.s.sing in the street. Cabs kept rolling up to other doors and rolling away again. Jasper must surely arrive at any moment.

Hilda softly opened the hall door, and standing on the steps, looked up and down the gas-lit street. If Jasper were walking home he would see her. The lamp light from within threw her slim figure into strong relief. A man pa.s.sing by stopped for an instant to look at her.

Hilda shut the hall door hastily in fear and distress. The man had looked as if he might say something rude. She returned to her little drawing room, and sitting down by the dying fire stared fixedly into its embers until her eyes were full of tears.

Between twelve and one Quentyns let himself softly into the house with his latch-key. He was immediately attracted by the light in the drawing room, the door of which was slightly ajar. He came into the room at once, to find Hilda lying back in her easy-chair, fast asleep. She was looking pale--all her pretty roses had fled. Quentyns' first impulse was to fold her in his arms in an embrace of absolute love and reconciliation.

What a pity it is that we don't oftener yield to our first impulses, for they are as a rule whispered to us by our good angels.

Quentyns bent forward, and lightly, very lightly, touched the sleeper's soft hair with his big hand. That touch was a caress, but it startled Hilda, who woke up with a cry.

"Oh, Jasper," she said, looking at him with alarm in her eyes, "you--you are home! I didn't mean to go to sleep, and--what is it, Jasper?"

"Kiss me, Hilda; I am glad you have returned," said Quentyns. "But another night, if I should happen to be late, you must not sit up for me--I hate being waited for."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LITTLE RIFT.

No backward path; ah! no returning; No second crossing that ripple's flow: Come to me now for the mist is burning: Come ere it darkens; Ah, no; ah, no!

--JEAN INGELOW.

Jasper Quentyns was quite certain that he was behaving admirably under circ.u.mstances of a specially trying nature.

Judy's advent in the house gave him no small annoyance. Hilda's behavior about Judy, her fit of sudden pa.s.sion, above all the relinquis.h.i.+ng of her engagement ring, had cut him to the quick. He was proud, sensitive, and jealous; when, therefore, he could smile at Judy and chat in light and pleasant tones to his wife, when he could remark on the furniture in the spare room, and make many suggestions for the comfort of the little sister-in-law whom he detested, he was under the impression that his conduct was not only exemplary but Christian.

It was true that he went out a good deal in the evenings, not taking Hilda with him as had been his original intention, but leaving her at home to enjoy the society of the child who had brought the first cloud into his home.

"I am going to dine out to-night, Hilda," he would say. "A man I know particularly well has asked me. Afterward he and I may go to the theater together. You won't mind of course being left, as you have Judy with you?"

"Oh, no, dear!" she replied, on the first of these occasions; and when Jasper came to say something of this sort two or three times a week, Hilda's invariable gentle answer was always that she did not mind.

Jasper was kind--kindness itself, and if she did feel just a trifle afraid of him, and if she could not help knowing all over her heart that the sun did not s.h.i.+ne now for her, that there was a cloud between her husband and herself, which she could neither brush away nor penetrate, she made no outward sign of being anything different from the cheery and affectionate Hilda of old. There were subjects now, however, which she shrank from touching on in Jasper's presence. One of them was her engagement ring, another the furniture in Judy's room. That ring she had been told by more than one connoisseur was worth at least fifty pounds, and Hilda was certain that the simple furniture which made Judy's little room so bower-like and youthful could not have cost anything approaching that sum. Still Jasper said nothing about giving her change out of the money which he had spent, and Hilda feared to broach the subject of the ring to him. Another topic which by a sort of instinct she refrained from was Judy herself. When Jasper was in the house Hilda was always glad when Judy retired to her own room. When the gay little voice, happy now, and clear and sweet as a lark's, was heard singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of gay songs all over the house, if Jasper were there, Hilda would carefully close the door of the room he was sitting in.

"Not now, Judy darling," she would say, when the child bounded eagerly into their presence. "Jasper is just going out--when he is out I will attend to you. Go on with your drawing in the dining room until I come to you, Judy."

Judy would go away at once obedient and happy, but Hilda's face would flush with anxiety, and her eyes would not meet her husband's. So between each of these young people there was that wall of reserve which is the sad beginning of love's departure; but Hilda, being the weaker of the two and having less to occupy her thoughts, suffered more than Jasper.

On a certain evening when Judy had been a happy resident of No. 10 Philippa Terrace for over a month, Quentyns was about to leave his office and to return home, when his friend Tom Rivers entered his room.

"Have you any engagement for to-night, Quentyns?" he asked abruptly.

"None," said Jasper, visible relief on his face, for he was beginning to dislike the evenings which he spent with a wife who always had a sense of constraint over her, and with the knowledge that Judy's presence was only tolerated when he was by. "I am at your service, Tom," said Jasper.

"Do you want me to go anywhere with you?"

Rivers was a great deal older than Quentyns, he was a very clever and practical man of the world. He looked now full at Jasper. He had not failed to observe the eager relief on his friend's face when he asked if he had any engagement. To a certain extent Jasper had made Rivers his confidant. He had told him that Hilda's little sister, who had been so ill and had given them all such a fright, was staying now at Philippa Terrace.

Rivers shrewdly guessed that Hilda's little sister was scarcely a welcome guest, as far as Quentyns was concerned. Rivers had taken a fancy to pretty Mrs. Quentyns. With a quick mental survey he saw again the picture of the young wife on the night when he had dined at Philippa Terrace.