April's Lady Part 55

He is regarding her with a searching air. How is it with her? Some old words recur to him:

"There is treachery, O Ahaziah!"

Why does she look at him like that? He mistrusts her present att.i.tude.

Even that aggressive mood of hers at the Dore gallery on that last day when they met was preferable to this agreeable but detestable indifference.

"It is always a pleasure to be with you," says he steadily, perhaps a little doggedly.

"There! you see!" says Joyce, with a pretty little nod at her sister.

"Well, I shall take half an hour's rest," says Mrs. Monkton, reluctantly, who is, in truth, feeling as fresh as a daisy, but who is afraid to stay. "But I shall be back for tea." She gives a little kindly glance to Felix, and, with a heart filled with forebodings, leaves the room.

"What a glorious day it has been!" says Joyce, continuing the conversation with Dysart in that new manner of hers, quite as if Barbara's going was a matter of small importance, and the fact that she has left them for the first time for all these months alone together of less importance still.

She is standing on the hearthrug, and is slowly taking the pins out of her bonnet. She seems utterly unconcerned. He might be the veriest stranger, or else the oldest, the most uninteresting friend in the world.

She has taken out all the pins now, and has thrown her bonnet on to the lounge nearest to her, and is standing before the gla.s.s in the overmantel patting and pus.h.i.+ng into order the soft locks that lie upon her forehead.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair."

"Life's a varied, bright illusion, Joy and sorrow--light and shade."

"It was almost warm," says she, turning round to him. She seems to be talking all the time, so vivid is her face, so intense her vitality. "I was so glad to see the Brabazons again. You know them, don't you? Kit looked perfect. So lovely, so good in every way--voice, face, manners. I felt I envied her. It would be delightful to feel that every one must be admiring one, as she does." She glances at him, and he leans a little toward her. "No, no, not a compliment, please. I know I am as much behind Kit as the moon is behind the sun."

"I wasn't going to pay you a compliment," says he, slowly.

"No?" she laughs. It was unlike her to have made that remark, and just as unlike her to have taken his rather discourteous reply so good-naturedly.

"It was a charming visit," she goes on, not in haste, but idly as it were, and as if words are easy to her. "I quite enjoyed it. Barbara didn't. I think she wanted to get home--she is always thinking of the babies--or----Well, I did. I am not ungrateful. I take the goods the G.o.ds provide, and find honest pleasure in them. I do not think, indeed, I laughed so much for quite a century as to-day with Kit."

"She is sympathetic," says Felix, with the smallest thought of the person in question in his mind.

"More than that, surely. Though that is a hymn of praise in itself.

After all it is a relief to meet Irish people when one has spent a week or two in stolid England. You agree with me?"

"I am English," returns he.

"Oh! Of course! How rude of me! I didn't mean it, however. I had entirely forgotten, our acquaintance having been confined entirely to Irish soil until this luckless moment. You do forgive me?"

She is leaning a little forward and looking at him with a careless expression.

"No," returns he briefly.

"Well, you should," says she, taking no notice of his cold rejoinder, and treating it, indeed, as if it is of no moment. If there was a deeper meaning in his refusal to grant her absolution she declines to acknowledge it. "Still, even that _betise_ of mine need not prevent you from seeing some truth in my argument. We have our charms, we Irish, eh?"

"Your charm?"

"Well, mine, if you like, as a type, and"--recklessly and with a shrug of her shoulders--"if you wish to be personal."

She has gone a little too far.

"I think I have acknowledged that," says he, coldly. He rises abruptly and goes over to where she is standing on the hearthrug--shading her face from the fire with a huge j.a.panese fan. "Have I ever denied your charm?" His tone has been growing in intensity, and now becomes stern.

"Why do you talk to me like this? What is the meaning of it all--your altered manner--everything? Why did you grant me this interview?"

"Perhaps because"--still with that radiant smile, bright and cold as early frost--"like that little soapy boy, I thought you would 'not be happy till you got it.'"

She laughs lightly. The laugh is the outcome of the smile, and its close imitation. It is perfectly successful, but on the surface only. There is no heart in it.

"You think I arranged it?"

"Oh, no; how could I? You have just said I arranged it." She shuts up her fan with a little click. "You want to say something, don't you?"

says she, "well, say it!"

"You give me permission, then?" asks he, gravely, despair knocking at his heart.

"Why not--would I have you unhappy always?" Her tone is jesting throughout.

"You think," taking the hand that holds the fan and restraining its motion for a moment, "that if I do speak I shall be happier?"

"Ah! that is beyond me," says she. "And yet--yes; to get a thing over is to get rid of fatigue. I have argued it all out for myself, and have come to the conclusion----"

"For yourself!"

"Well, for you too," a little impatiently. "After all, it is you who want to speak. Silence, to me, is golden. But it occurred to me in the silent watches of the night," with another, now rather forced, little laugh, "that if you once said to me all you had to say, you would be contented, and go away and not trouble me any more."

"I can do that now, without saying anything," says he slowly. He has dropped her hand; he is evidently deeply wounded.

"Can you?"

Her eyes are resting relentlessly on his. Is there magic in them? Her mouth has taken a strange expression.

"I might have known how it would be," says Dysart, throwing up his head.

"You will not forgive! It was but a moment--a few words, idle, hardly-considered, and----"

"Oh, yes, considered," says she slowly.

"They were unmeant!" persists he, fiercely. "I defy you to think otherwise. One great mistake--a second's madness--and you have ordained that it shall wreck my whole life! You!--That evening in the library at the court. I had not thought of----"

"Ah!" she interrupts him, even more by her gesture--which betrays the first touch of pa.s.sion she has shown--than by her voice, that is still mocking. "I knew you would have to say it!"

"You know me, indeed!" says he, with an enforced calmness that leaves him very white. "My whole heart and soul lies bare to you, to ruin it as you will. It is the merest waste of time, I know; but still I have felt all along that I must tell you again that I love you, though I fully understand I shall receive nothing in return but scorn and contempt.

Still, to be able even to say it is a relief to me."