April's Lady Part 18

"Or hers--which?"

"Of course--manlike--you condemn our s.e.x. That's why I'm glad I'm not a man."

"Why? Because, if you were, you would condemn your present s.e.x?"

"_Certainly_ not! Because I wouldn't be of an unfair, mean, ungenerous disposition for the world."

"Good old Jo!" says Mr. Browne, giving her a tender pat upon the back.

By this time Baltimore has reached them.

"Have you seen Lady Baltimore anywhere?" asks he.

"Not quite lately," says d.i.c.ky; "last tune I saw her she was dancing with Farnham."

"Oh--after that she went to the library," says Joyce quickly. "I fancy she may be there still, because she looked a little tired."

"Well, she had been dancing a good deal," says d.i.c.ky.

"Thanks. I dare say I'll find her," says Baltimore, with an air of indifference, hurrying on.

"I hope he will," says Joyce, looking after him.

"I hope so too--and in a favorable temper."

"You're a cynic, d.i.c.ky, under all that airy manner of yours," says Miss Kavanagh severely. "Come out to the gardens, the air may cool your brain, and reduce you to milder judgments."

"Of Lady Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Truly I do seem to be sitting in judgment on her and her family."

"Her _family_! What has Bertie done?"

"Oh, there is more family than Bertie," says Mr. Browne. "She has a brother, hasn't she?"

Meantime Lord Baltimore, taking Joyce's hint, makes his way to the library, to find his wife there lying back in a huge arm-chair. She is looking a little pale. A little _ennuyee_; it is plain that she has sought this room--one too public to be in much request--with a view to getting away for a little while from the noise and heat of the ballroom.

"Not dancing?" says her husband, standing well away from her. She had sprung into a sitting posture the moment she saw him, an action that has angered Baltimore. His tone is uncivil; his remark, it must be confessed, superfluous. _Why_ does she persist in treating him as a stranger? Surely, on whatever bad terms they may be, she need not feel it necessary to make herself uncomfortable on his appearance. She has evidently been enjoying that stolen lounge, and _now_----

The lamplight is streaming full upon her face. A faint color has crept into it. The white velvet gown she is wearing is hardly whiter than her neck and arms, and her eyes are as bright as her diamonds; yet there is no feature in her face that could be called strictly handsome. This, Baltimore tells himself, staring at her as he is, in a sort of insolent defiance of the cold glance she has directed at him. No; there is no beauty about that face; distinctly bred, calm and pure, it might possibly be called charming by those who liked her, but nothing more.

She is not half so handsome as--as--any amount of other women he knows, and yet----

It increases his anger towards her tenfold to know that in her secret soul she has the one face that to _him_ is beautiful, and ever _will_ be beautiful.

"You see," says she gently, and with an expressive gesture, "I longed for a moment's pause, so I came here. Do they want me?" She rises from her seat, looking very tall and graceful. If her face is not strictly lovely, there is, at all events, no lack of loveliness in her form.

"I can't answer for 'they,'" says Baltimore, "but"----he stops dead short here. If he _had_ been going to say anything, the desire to carry out his intention dies upon the spot. "No, I am not aware that 'they' or anybody wants you particularly at this moment. Pray sit down again."

"I have had quite a long rest already."

"You look tired, however. _Are_ you?"

"Not in the least."

"Give me this dance," then says he, half mockingly, yet with a terrible earnestness in his voice.

"Give it to _you_! Thank you. No."

"Fearful of contamination?" with a smiling sneer.

"Pray spare me your jibes," says she very coldly, her face whitening.

"Pray spare me your presence, you should rather say. Let us have the truth at all hazards. A saint like you should be careful."

To this she makes him no answer.

"What!" cries he, sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your _bete noire_? your _fear of gossip_?"

"I fear nothing"--icily.

"You do, however. Forgive the contradiction," with a sarcastic inclination of the head. "But for this fear of yours you would have cast me off long ago, and bade me go to the devil as soon as--nay, the sooner the better. And indeed if it were not for the child----By the bye, do you forget I have a hold on _him_--a stronger than yours?"

"I _forget_ nothing either," returns she as icily as before; but now a tremor, barely perceptible, but terrible in its intensity, shakes her voice.

"Hah! You need not tell me _that_. You are relentless as--well, 'Fate'

comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance with me to-night, when all the County is present, and Mother Grundy goes to bed with a sore heart. Scandal lies slain. All will cry aloud: '_There they go!_ Fast friends in spite of all the lies we have heard about them.' Is it possible you can deliberately forego so great a chance of puzzling our neighbors?"

"I can."

"Why, where is your sense of humor? One trembles for it! To be able to deceive them all so deliriously; to send them home believing us on good terms, a veritable loving couple"--he breaks into a curious laugh.

"This is too much," says she, her face now like death. "You would insult me! Believe me, that not to spare myself all the gossip with which the whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!"

His short-lived, most unmirthful mirth has died from him, he has laid a hand upon the table near him to steady himself.

"You are candid, on my soul," says he slowly.

She moves quickly towards the door, her velvet skirt sweeping over his feet as she goes by--the perfume of the violets lying in her bosom reaches him.

Hardly knowing his own meaning, he puts out his hand and catches her by her naked arm, just where the long glove ceases above the elbow.

"Isabel, give me this dance," says he a little wildly.

"_No!_"