April's Lady Part 25

"Well," sighing, "it hardly matters. We shall not meet again for a long, long time."

"How is that? Isabel, the last time she condescended to speak to me of her own accord," with an unpleasant laugh, "told me that she had asked you to come here again next February, and that you had accepted the invitation. She, indeed, made quite a point of it."

"Ah! that was a long time ago."

"Weeks do not make a long time."

"Some weeks hold more than years. Yes, you are right; she made quite a point about my coming. Well, she is always very civil."

"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil."

"She is proud," coldly.

"You will come?"

"I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up with her."

"The very essence of improbability."

"While I--shall not have made it up with my husband."

"One seems quite as possible as the other."

"Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her.

Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh, "is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown.

If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have nothing belonging to him."

"His name."

"Oh, as for that--does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a child he would have made a persecution of it--and so I am better off as it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of yours. However----"

"Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture----"

"Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"--with bitter meaning--"'sleeping dogs lie.'"

Baltimore laughs shortly.

"That is severe," says he.

"It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If,"

turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me, it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him."

She takes her hand from his arm and motions him to ascend the steps leading into the conservatory.

"But you?" says he, surprised.

"Let me remain here a little while. I am tired. My head aches, I----"

"Let me stay with you."

"No," smiling faintly. "What I want is to be alone. To feel the silence.

Go. Do not be uneasy about me. Believe me you will be kind if you do as I ask you."

"It is a command," says he slowly. And slowly, too, he turns away from her.

Seeing him so uncertain about leaving her, she steps abruptly into a dark side path, and finding a chair sinks into it.

The soft breaking of the dawn over the tree tops far away seems to add another pang to the anguish that is consuming her. She covers her face with her hands.

Oh! if it had all been different. Two lives sacrificed! nay, three! For surety Isabel cannot care for him. Oh! if it had been she, she herself--what is there she could not have forgiven him? Nay, she must have forgiven him, because life without him would have been insupportable. If only she might have loved him honorably. If only she might ever love him--successfully--dishonorably!

The thought seems to sting her. Involuntarily she throws up her head and courts the chill winds of dawn that sweep with a cool touch her burning forehead.

She had called her proud. Would she herself, then, be less proud? That Isabel dreads her, half scorns her of late, is well known to her, and yet, with a very pa.s.sion of pride, would dare her to prove it. She, Isabel, has gone even so far as to ask her rival to visit her again in the early part of the coming year to meet her present friends. So far that pride had carried her. But pride--was pride love? If she herself loved Baltimore, would she, even for pride's sake, entreat the woman he singled out for his attentions to spend another long visit in her country house? And if Isabel does not honestly love him, why then--is he not lawful prey for one who can, who does not love him?

One--who loves him. But he--whom does he love?

Torn by some last terrible thought she starts to her feet, and, as though inaction has become impossible to her, draws her white silken wrap around her, and sweeps rapidly out of all view of the waning Chinese lamps into the gray obscurity of the coming day that lies in the far gardens.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Song have thy day, and take thy fill of light Before the night be fallen across thy way; Sing while he may, man hath no long delight."

"What a delicious day!" says Joyce, stopping short on the hill to take a look round her. It is the next day, and indeed far into it. Luncheon is a thing of the past, and both she and Dysart know that it will take them all their time to reach St. Bridget's Hill and be back again for afternoon tea. They had started on their expedition in defiance of many bribes held out to them. For one thing, there was to be a reception at the Court at five; many of those who had danced through last night having been asked to come over late in the afternoon of to-day to talk over the dance itself and the little etceteras belonging to it.

The young members of the Monkton family had been specially invited, too, as a sort of make up to Bertie, the little son of the house, who had been somewhat aggrieved at being sent to bed without his share of the festivities on hand. He had retired to his little cot, indeed, with his arms stuffed full of crackers, but how could crackers and cakes and sweets console any one for the loss of being out at an unG.o.dly hour and seeing a real live dance! The one thing that finally helped him to endure his hard lot was a promise on his mother's part that Tommy and Mabel Monkton should come down next day and revel with him among the glorious ruins of the supper table. The little Monktons had not come, however, when Joyce left for her walk.

"Going out?" Lady Swansdown had said to her, meeting her in the hall, fully equipped for her excursion. "But why, my dear girl? We expect those amusing Burkes in an hour or so, and the Delaneys, and----"

"Yes, why go?" repeats Beauclerk, who has just come up. His manner is friendly in the extreme, yet a very careful observer might notice a strain about it, a determination to be friendly that rather spoils the effect. Her manner toward him last night after his interview with Miss Maliphant in the garden and her growing coldness ever since, has somewhat disconcerted, him mentally. Could she have heard, or seen, or been told of anything? There might, of course, have been a little _contretemps_ of some sort. People, as a rule, are so beastly treacherous! "You will make us wretched if you desert us," says he with _empress.e.m.e.nt_. As he speaks he goes up to her and lets his eyes as well as his lips implore her. Miss Maliphant had left by the early train, so that he is quite unattached, and able to employ his whole battery of fascinations on the subjugation of this refractory person.

"I am sorry. Don't be more wretched than you can help!" says Joyce, with a smile wonderfully unconcerned. "After a dance I want to walk to clear my brain, and Mr. Dysart has been good enough to say he will accompany me."

"Is he accompanying you?" says Beauclerk, with an unpardonable supercilious glance around him as if in search of the absent Dysart.

"You mustn't think him a laggard at his post," says Miss Kavanagh, still smiling, but now in a little provoking way that seems to jest at his pretended suspicion of Dysart's constancy and dissolve it into the thinnest of thin air. "He was here just now, but I sent him to loose the dogs. I like to have them with me, and Lady Baltimore is pleased when they get a run."

"Isabel is always so sympathetic," says he, with a quite new and delightful rush of sympathy toward Isabel. "I suppose," glancing at Joyce keenly, "you would not care for an additional escort? The dogs--and Dysart--will be sufficient?"

"Mr. Dysart and the dogs will be," says she. "Ah! Here he comes," as Dysart appears at the open doorway, a little pack of terriers at his heels. "What a time you've been!" cries she, moving quickly to him. "I thought you would never come. Good-bye, Lady Swansdown; good-bye,"

glancing casually at Beauclerk. "Keep one teapot for us if you can!"

She trips lightly up the avenue at Dysart's side, leaving Beauclerk in a rather curious frame of mind.