The Heart of a Woman Part 12

She did nothing out of the way; she only loved one man altogether beyond herself, and she understood his pa.s.sionate love for her, and all that troubled him in this world in which they both lived.

"I love that barcarolle, don't you?" she said after awhile.

"I did not hear it," he replied.

"Luke."

"It's no use, Lou," he said under his breath. "You must despise me for being a drivelling fool, but I have neither eyes nor ears now. I would give all I have in the world to lie down there on the floor now before you and to kiss the soles of your feet."

"How could I despise you, Luke, for that?"

"Put your hand on my knee, just for a moment, Lou. I think I shall go mad if I don't feel your touch."

She did as he asked her, and he was silent until the last note of the barcarolle died away in a softly murmured breath.

"What a cowardly wretch I am," he said under cover of the wave of enthusiastic applause which effectually covered the sound of his voice to all ears save hers. "I think I would sell my soul for a touch of your hand, and all the while I know that with every word I am playing the part of a coward. If Colonel Harris heard me he would give me a sound thras.h.i.+ng. A dog whip is what I deserve."

"I have told you," she rejoined simply, "that father does not wish our engagement to be broken off. He sticks to your cause and will do so through thick and thin. He still believes that this Philip is an impostor, and thinks that Lord Radclyffe has taken leave of his senses."

She spoke quite quietly, matter-of-factly now, pulling, by her serene calm, Luke's soul back from the realms of turbulent sensations to the prosy facts of to-day. And he--in answer to her mute dictate and with a movement wholly instinctive and mechanical--drew himself upright, and pa.s.sed his hand over his ruffled hair, and the jeopardized immaculateness of s.h.i.+rt front and cuffs.

"Philip de Mountford," he said simply, "is no impostor, Lou. He has been perfectly straightforward; and Mr. Dobson for one, who has seen all his papers, thinks that there is no doubt whatever that he is Uncle Arthur's son. His clerk--Mr. Downing--went out to Martinique, you know, and his first letters came a day or two ago. All inquiries give the same result, and Downing says that it is quite easy to trace the man's life, step by step, from his birth in St. Pierre, past the dark days of the earthquake and the lonely life at Marie-Galante.

Mrs. de Mountford was a half-caste native, as we all suspected, but the marriage was unquestionably legal. Downing has spoken to people in Martinique and also in Marie-Galante, who knew her and her son, or at any rate, of them. I cannot tell you everything clearly, but there are a great many links in a long chain of evidence, and so far Mr. Dobson and his clerk have not come across a broken one. That the Mrs. de Mountford who died at Marie-Galante was Uncle Arthur's wife, and that Philip is his son, I am afraid no one can question. He has quite a number of letters in his possession which Uncle Arthur wrote after he had practically abandoned wife and child. I think it was the letters that convinced Uncle Rad."

"Lord Radclyffe," she remarked dryly, "has taken everything far too much for granted."

"He is convinced, Lou--and that's all about it."

"He is," she retorted more hotly than was her wont, "acting in a cruel and heartless manner. Even if this Philip is your uncle Arthur's son, even if he is heir to the peerage and the future head of the family, there was no reason for installing him in your home, Luke, and turning you and the others out of it."

"I suppose," rejoined Luke philosophically, "the house was never really our home. What Uncle Rad gave freely, he has taken away again from us. I don't suppose that we have the right to complain."

"But what will become of you all?"

"We must sc.r.a.pe along. Frank must have his promised allowance or he'll never get along in the service, and five hundred pounds a year is a big slice out of a thousand. Jim, too, spends a great deal. Uncle Rad never stinted him with money, for it was he who wanted Jim to be in the Blues. Now he may have to exchange into a less expensive regiment.

I think Edie will marry soon--Reggie Duggan has been in love with her for the past two years--she may make up her mind now."

"But you, Luke?"

He did not know if he ought to tell her of his plans. The ostrich farm out in Africa--the partners.h.i.+p offered to him by a cousin of his mother's who was doing remarkably well, but who was getting old and wanted the companions.h.i.+p of one of his kind. It was a living anyway--but a giving up of everything that had const.i.tuted life in the past--and the giving up of his exquisite Lou. How could he ask her to share that life with him?--the primitive conditions, the total absence of luxuries, the rough, every-day existence?

And Lou, so perfectly dressed, so absolutely modern and dainty, waited on hand and foot----

But she insisted, seeing that he was hesitating and was trying to keep something from her.

"What about you, Luke?"

He had not time to reply, for from the hall below a shrill voice called to them both by name.

"Mr. de Mountford, Miss Harris, the young people want to dance. You'll join in, won't you?"

Already he was on his feet, every trace of emotion swept away from his face, together with every crease from his immaculate dress clothes, and every stray wisp of hair from his well-groomed head. Not a man, torn with pa.s.sion, fighting the battle of life against overwhelming odds, casting away from him the hand which he would have given his last drop of blood to possess--only the man of the world, smiling while his very soul was being wrung--only the puppet dancing to the conventional world's tune.

"Dancing?" he said lightly: "Rather--Lady Ducies may I have this first waltz? No?--Oh! I say that's too bad. The first Lancers then? Good!

Lou, may I have this dance?"

And the world went on just the same.

CHAPTER XI

AND THERE ARE SOCIAL DUTIES TO PERFORM

The first November fog.

The world had wagged on its matter-of-fact way for more than six months now, since that day in April when Philip de Mountford--under cover of lies told by Parker--had made his way into Lord Radclyffe's presence: more than five months since the favoured nephew had been so unceremoniously thrust out of his home.

Spring had yielded to summer, summer given way to autumn, and already winter was treading hard on autumn's heels. The autumn session had filled London with noise and bustle, with political dinner parties and monster receptions, with new plays at all the best theatres, and volumes of ephemeral literature.

And all that was--to-night--wrapped in a dense fog, the first of the season, quite a stranger, too, in London, for scientists had a.s.serted positively that the era of the traditional "pea-souper" was over; the metropolis would know it no more.

Colonel Harris was in town with his sister, Lady Ryder, and Louisa, and swearing at London weather in true country fas.h.i.+on. He declared that fogs paralyzed his intellect that he became positively imbecile, not knowing how to fight his way in the folds of such a black pall.

Taxicab drivers he mistrusted; in fact, he had all an old sportsman's hatred of mechanically propelled vehicles, whilst he flatly refused to bring valuable horses up to town, to catch their death of cold whilst waiting about in the fog.

So Luke had promised to pilot the party as far as the Danish Legation, where they were to dine to-night. This was the only condition under which Colonel Harris would consent to enter one of those confounded motors.

Colonel Harris had remained loyal to the core to Luke and to his fortunes. It is a way old sportsmen have, and he had never interfered by word or innuendo in Louisa's actions with regard to her engagement.

His daughter was old enough, he said, to know her own mind. She liked Luke, and it would be shabby to leave him in the lurch, now that the last of the society rats were scurrying to leave the sinking s.h.i.+p.

They were doing it, too, in a mighty hurry. The invitations which the penniless younger son received toward the end of the London season were considerably fewer than those which were showered on him at its beginning before the world had realized that Philip de Mountford had come to stay, and would one day be Earl of Radclyffe with a rent roll of eighty thousand pounds a year, and the sore need of a wife.

It had all begun with the bridge parties. Luke would no longer play, since he could no longer afford to lose a quarter's income at one sitting. Uncle Rad used to shrug indifferent shoulders at such losses, and place blank checks at the dear boy's disposal. Imagine then how welcome Luke was at bridge parties, and how very undesirable now.

Then he could no longer make return for hospitable entertainments. He had no home to which to ask smart friends. Lord Radclyffe though a monster of ill-humour, gave splendid dinner parties at which Luke was quasi host. Now it was all give and no take; and the givers retired one by one, quite unregretted by Luke, who thus was spared the initiative of turning his back on his friends. They did the turning, quite politely but very effectually. Luke scarcely noticed how he was dropping out of his former circle. He was over-absorbed and really did not care. Moreover his dress clothes were getting shabby.

To-night at the Langham, when he arrived at about seven o'clock so as to have an undisturbed half hour with Lou, Colonel Harris greeted him with outstretched hand and a cordial welcome.

"h.e.l.lo, Luke, my boy! how goes it with you?"

Louisa said nothing, but her eyes welcomed him, and she drew him near her, on to the sofa in front of the fire, and allowed her hand to rest in his, for she knew how he loved the touch of it. People were beginning to say that Louisa Harris was getting old: she never had been good-looking, poor thing, but always smart, very smart--now she was losing her smartness, and what remained?

She had come up to town this autumn in last autumn's frocks! and the twins were after all being chaperoned by their aunt. Would that absurd engagement never be broken off? Fancy Louisa Harris married to a poor man! Why, she did not know how to do her hair, and dresses were still worn fastened at the back, and would be for years to come! Louisa Harris and no French maid! Cheap corsets and cleaned gloves! It was unthinkable.

Perhaps the engagement was virtually broken off--anyhow the wedding could never take place.

Unless Philip de Mountford happened to die.