Red Hair Part 20

"Oh!"

We both ate for a little. The tea was greenish black--and lukewarm. No wonder he has dyspepsia.

"Are the children in, I wonder?" he hazarded, presently.

"Yes," I said. "I went to the nursery and saw them as I came down."

At that moment the three angels burst into the room, but came forward decorously and embraced their parent. They do not seem to adore him as they do Lady Ver.

"Good-morning, papa," said the eldest, and the other two repeated it in chorus. "We hope you have slept well and had a nice pa.s.sage across the sea."

They evidently had been drilled outside.

Then, nature getting uppermost, they patted him patronizingly.

"Daddie, darling, have you brought us any new dolls from Paris?"

"And I want one with red hair, like Evangeline," said Yseult, the youngest.

Sir Charles seemed bored and uncomfortable; he kissed his three exquisite bits of Dresden china, so like and yet unlike himself--they have Lady Ver's complexion, but brown eyes and golden hair like his.

"Yes; ask Harbottle for the packages," he said. "I have no time to talk to you. Tell your mother I will be in for lunch," and making excuses to me for leaving so abruptly--an appointment in the City--he shuffled out of the room.

I wonder how Lady Ver makes his heart beat! I _don't_ wonder she prefers--Lord Robert.

"Why is papa's nose so red?" said Yseult.

"Hus.h.!.+" implored Mildred. "Poor papa has come off the sea."

"I don't love papa," said Corisande, the middle one. "He's cross, and sometimes he makes darling mummie cry."

"We must always love papa," chanted Mildred, in a lesson voice. "We must always love our parents, and grandmamma, and grandpapa, and aunts and cousins--amen." The "amen" slipped out unawares, and she looked confused, and corrected herself when she had said it.

"Let's find Harbottle. Harbottle is papa's valet," Corisande said, "and he is much thoughtfuller than papa. Last time he brought me a Highland boy doll, though papa had forgotten I asked for it."

They all three went out of the room, first kissing me, and courtesying sweetly when they got to the door. They are never rude or boisterous, the three angels--I love them.

Left alone, I did feel like a dead fish. The column "London Day by Day"

caught my eye in the _Daily Telegraph_, and I idly glanced down it, not taking in the sense of the words, until "The Duke of Torquilstone has arrived at Vavasour House, St. James's, from abroad," I read.

Well, what did it matter to me--what did anything matter to me?--Lord Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have a gla.s.s of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to supper, and various other _empresse_ things, looking at her with the greatest devotion. I might not have existed.

She was capricious, as she sometimes is. "No, Robert, I am going home to bed. I have got a chill, too," she said.

And the footman announcing the electric at that moment, we flew off and left them, Christopher having fastened my sable collar with an air of possession which would have irritated me beyond words at another time, but I felt cold and dead, and utterly numb.

Lady Ver did not speak a word on the way back, and kissed me frigidly as she went into her room; then she called out:

"I am tired, snake-girl; don't think I am cross. Good-night." And so I crept up to bed.

To-morrow is Sat.u.r.day and my visit ends. After my lunch with Lady Merrenden, I am a wanderer on the face of the earth.

Where shall I wander to? I feel I want to go away by myself, away where I shall not see a human being who is English. I want to forget what they look like; I want to shut out of my sight their well-groomed heads; I want--oh, I do not know what I do want.

Shall I marry Mr. Carruthers? He would eat me up, and then go back to Paris to the lady he loves. But I should have the life I like--and the Carruthers's emeralds are beautiful--and I love Branches--and--and----

"Her ladys.h.i.+p would like to see you, miss," said a footman.

So I went up the stairs.

Lady Ver was in a darkened room, soft pink blinds right down beyond the half-drawn blue silk curtains.

"I have a fearful head, Evangeline," she said.

"Then I will smooth your hair," and I climbed up behind her and began to run over her forehead with the tips of my fingers.

"You are really a pet, snake-girl," she said, "and you can't help it."

"I can't help what?"

"Being a witch. I knew you would hurt me when I first saw you, and I tried to protect myself by being kind to you."

"Oh, dear Lady Ver!" I said, deeply moved. "I would not hurt you for the world, and indeed you misjudge me. I have kept the bargain to the very letter--and spirit."

"Yes, I know you have to the letter, at least, but why did Robert go out of the box last night?" she demanded, wearily.

"He said he had got a chill, did not he?" I replied, lamely. She clasped her hands pa.s.sionately.

"A chill! You don't know Robert. He never had a chill in his life," she said. "Oh, he is the dearest, dearest being in the world. He makes me believe in good and all things honest. He isn't vicious, and isn't a prig, and he knows the world, and he lives in its ways like the rest of us, and yet he doesn't begin by thinking every woman is fair game and undermining what little self-respect she may have left to her."

"Yes," I said. I found nothing else to say.

"If I had had a husband like that I would never have yawned," she went on; "and besides, Robert is too masterful and would be too jealous to let one divert one's self with another."

"Yes," I said again, and continued to smooth her forehead.

"He has sentiment, too--he is not matter-of-fact and brutal--and oh, you should see him on a horse!--he is too, too beautiful." She stretched out her arms in a movement of weariness that was pathetic and touched me.

"You have known him a long, long time?" I said, gently.

"Perhaps five years, but only casually until this season. I was busy with some one else before. I have played with so many." Then she roused herself up. "But Robert is the only one who has never made love to me.

Always dear and sweet, and treating me like a queen, as if I were too high for that, and having his own way, and not caring a pin for any one's opinion. And I have wanted him to make love to me often. But now I realize it is no use. Only, you sha'n't have him, snake-girl! I told him as we were going to the opera you were as cold as ice, and were playing with Christopher, and I am going to take him down to Northumberland with me to-morrow out of your way. He shall be my devoted friend, at any rate. You would break his heart, and I shall still hold you to your promise."

I said nothing.

"Do you hear? I say: _You_ would break his heart. He would be only capable of loving straight to the end. The kind of love any other woman would die for--but--you--You are Carmen."

At all events, not _she_, nor any other woman, shall ever see what I am or am not. My heart is not for them to peck at. So I said, calmly: