The Inner Shrine Part 17

Pruyn laughed.

"Anything, you mean, that was open to all comers. Mrs. Grimston would be flattered."

"I didn't mean to speak slightingly," she hastened to say. "There were plenty of nice people in Paris whom I didn't know."

"And plenty, I imagine, who thought you ought to have known them. Mrs.

Grimston, and Mrs. Bayford, too, would have been among that number."

"Well, you see I do know them--by sight. I recall Miss Grimston especially. She's so handsome."

"I shall tell her that to-night."

"To-night?"

"Yes; it's with them that Dorothea and I are dining. The name conveying nothing to you, you probably didn't remember it. The fact is that, as Mrs. Bayford is the sister of my uncle's partner--my partner, too--I make it a point to be very civil to her twice a year--once when I dine with her, and once when she dines with me. The annual festivals have been delayed this season because she has only just returned from a long visit to j.a.pan and India, with Marion in her wake."

There had been so much to say which, in the glamour of that glorious afternoon, was more important that no further time was spent on the topic. Derek forgot the meeting till Mrs. Bayford recalled it to him as he sat beside her in the evening. She was one of those small, ill-shapen women whose infirmities are thrown into more conspicuous relief by dress and jewels and _decolletage_. Seated at the head of her table, she produced the impression of a G.o.ddess of Discord at a feast of well-meaning, hapless mortals.

"I want a word with you," she said, parenthetically, to Derek, on her left, before turning her attention to the more important neighbor on her right.

"One is scant measure," he laughed, in reply, "but I must be grateful even for that."

It was the middle of dinner before she took notice of him again, but when she did she plunged into her subject boldly.

"I suppose you didn't think I knew who you were walking with this afternoon?"

"Yes, I did, because the lady recognized you. She said you and Mrs.

Grimston were among the nice people in Paris whom she hadn't met--but whom she knew very well by sight."

If Derek thought this reply calculated to appease an angry deity, he discovered his mistake.

"Did she have the indecency to say she hadn't met me?"

"I think she did; but she probably didn't know that the word indecency could apply to anything connected with you."

"Why, I was introduced to her four times in one season!"

"I suppose she hasn't as good a memory as yours."

"Oh, as for that, it wasn't a matter of memory. n.o.body was permitted to forget her--she was quite notorious."

"I've always heard that in Paris the mere possession of beauty is enough to keep any one in the public eye."

"It wasn't beauty alone--if she _has_ beauty; though for my part I can't see it."

"It _is_ of rather an elusive quality."

"It must be. But if it exists at all, I can tell you that it's of a dangerous quality."

"Hasn't that always been the peculiarity of beauty ever since the days of Helen of Troy?"

"I'm sure I can't say. I've always tried to steer clear of that sort of thing--"

"That must be an excellent plan; only it deprives one of the power of speaking as an authority, doesn't it?"

"I don't pretend to speak as an authority. If I say anything at all, it's what everybody knows."

"What everybody knows is generally--scandal."

"This was certainly scandal; but it wasn't the fact that everybody knew it that made it so."

"Then I'm sure you wouldn't wish to repeat it."

"I don't see why you should be sure of anything of the kind. I consider it my duty to repeat it."

"Then you won't be surprised if I consider it mine to contradict it."

"Certainly not. I shouldn't be surprised at anything you could do, Derek, after what I've heard since I came home."

"I won't ask you what that is--"

"No; your own conscience must tell you. No one can go on as you've been doing, and not know he must be talked about."

"I've always understood that that was more flattering than to be ignored."

"It depends. There's such a thing as receiving that sort of flattery first, only to be ignored in the sequel. I speak as your friend, Derek--"

"I thoroughly understand that; but may I ask if it's in the way of warning or of threat?"

"It's in the way of both. You must see that, whatever risks I may be prepared to run myself, as long as I have Marion with me I can't expose her to--"

"To what?"

Notwithstanding his efforts to keep the conversation to a tone of banter, acrimonious though it had to be, Derek was unable to p.r.o.nounce the two brief syllables without betraying some degree of anger. Glancing up at him as she shrank under her weight of jewels, Mrs. Bayford found him very big and menacing; but she was a brave woman, and if she shrivelled, it was only as a cat shrivels before springing at a mastiff.

"I can't expose her to the chance of meeting--"

She paused, not from hesitation, but with the rhetorical intention of making the end of her phrase more telling.

"My future wife," he whispered, before she had time to go on. "It's only fair to tell you that."

"Good heavens! You're not going to marry the creature!"

Mrs. Bayford brought out the words with the dramatic action and intensity they deserved. In the hum of talk around and across the table it was doubtful whether or not they were heard, and yet more than one of the guests glanced up with a look of interrogation. Dorothea caught her father's eyes in a gaze which he had some difficulty in returning with the proper amount of steadiness; but Mrs. Berrington Jones came to the rescue of the company by asking Mrs. Bayford to tell the amusing story of how her bath had been managed in j.a.pan.

So the incident pa.s.sed by, leaving a sense of mystery in the air; though for Derek, all sense of annoyance disappeared in the knowledge that he was Diane's champion.

He was thinking over the incident in the luxurious semi-darkness of the electric brougham as they were going homeward, when the clear voice of Dorothea broke in on his meditation.