"Ill?" said Howard, raising his brows and smiling, for he knew the meaning of loyalty to a friend. "I never saw him in better spirits in my life, he was quite hilarious."
Her eyes flashed upon him keenly, but he met them with his slow, cynical smile.
"He must have been very different to what he usually is," she said. "I have not seen him laugh since--since we left Bryndermere." Her lips came tightly together, and she looked at him and then away from him.
"Mr. Howard, you are his friend, his closest friend. I want you to tell me--But, no; you would not speak if you were on the rack, would you? No one sees, no one speaks; it is only I who, always watching him, see that there is something wrong. And I--I am so helpless!"
The outburst was so unlike her, the dropping of the mask of pride and self-possession was so sudden that Howard was startled; but no sign of his emotion revealed itself upon his placid face, upon which his serene smile did not waver for an instant.
"I think you are availing yourself of a lady"s privilege and indulging in a fancy, Miss Falconer," he said. "Stafford is perfectly well, and, of course, is perfectly happy--how could he be otherwise?" He bent his head slightly. "Perhaps he may be a little tired. Alas! we are not all endowed with the splendid energy which the G.o.ds have bestowed on you and Sir Stephen; and the heat is enough to take the backbone out of anyone less gifted."
She checked a sigh, as if she understood that it was useless to appeal to him, and after a pause Howard said:
"You haven"t told me the great secret yet."
She seemed to wake from a reverie, and said, listlessly:
"It will not be a secret for many hours. Sir Stephen is expecting the peerage to-night. The official intimation should have reached him by midday; but the prime minister did not return to London till this afternoon and the formalities were not completed. I think it will be announced to-night."
Her eyes shone and a spot of colour started to her cheeks.
"You are glad?" Howard said, with a smile of sympathy that had something of mockery in it, for your worldly cynic is always amused by worldliness in others.
"Yes, I am glad; but not for my own sake. You think I am pining for a coronet? I do not care--it is for Stafford"s sake that I am glad.
Nothing is too good for him, no t.i.tle too high!"
"Do you think Stafford cares?" asked Howard.
She flushed and her eyes fell before his.
"No," she said, with a deep sigh. "I do not think he cares. He seems quite indifferent. All the time Sir Stephen and I have been working--"
"Have you been working?" said Howard, raising his eyebrows.
She laughed a little wearily.
"Indeed, yes. I have been--what do you men call it?--log-rolling for weeks. It is I who have found out what is wanted by the people who can help us. And it is generally, always, in fact, money. Always money! I get "tips" from Sir Stephen and my father, and whisper them to the lords and ladies who have influence in the political drawing-rooms and clubs."
"And Sir Stephen?"
She laughed.
"His task is much simpler and easier than mine. He just goes down to his political club and subscribes so many thousand pounds towards the party expenses. The other night he gave them--but I must not tell the secrets of the Tories even to you, Mr. Howard. But it was a very large sum. It is always done that way, isn"t it?"
"I suppose so," he a.s.sented. "It must be; for, come to think of it, a man isn"t made a peer simply because he brews good beer; and a great many of our peers were and are good brewers, you see. Oh, it"s all right, it pans out very satisfactorily, as the miners say. And so Stafford will be the future Earl of--"
"Earl of Highcliffe," she said. "He has declined anything less than an earldom. He has given so much. Sir Stephen owns some land there, and--and some of his people come from there."
Howard laughed.
"I see. Been there since they came over with the Conqueror. The Herald"s College will have no difficulty in finding a coat-of-arms.
Something with a Kaffir and a railway in it."
She smiled tolerantly.
"You always make fun of everything, Mr. Howard. If only Stafford would care--"
She sighed, and a moment afterwards her hand went to her lip with the gesture of a nervous school-girl. She had heard Stafford"s voice in the hall.
He came in and greeted her gravely, and, Howard being present, merely took her hand.
"You two conspiring as usual?" he said, with a smile, with the smile which indicates a mind from which mirth has been absent for some time.
"Yes," said Howard; "we have been plotting the cotillon and very properly arranging that the prize shall go to the wisest, the nicest, and best-looking man in the room. I need not tell you his name?" He spread his hand on his heart, and bowed with mock complacency. "And now I will go and find Sir Stephen and get a cigarette before the battle begins. _Au revoir_."
When he had gone, almost before the door had closed on him, Maude moved closer to Stafford, and with a mixture of shyness and eagerness, put her arm round his neck.
"How good of you to come so early!" she murmured, in the voice which only a woman in love can use, and only when she is addressing the man she loves. "You did not come to Richmond? Never mind! Stafford, you know that I do not wish to hamper or bind you, do you not?--Are you well?" she broke off, scanning his face earnestly, anxiously. "Quite well," he responded. "Why do you ask, Maude?"
"I thought you looked tired, pale, that you have looked so for some weeks," she said, her eyes seeking his.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I am quite well. The hot weather makes one feel rather limp, I suppose. At any rate, there is nothing else the matter with me but a fit of laziness."
"As if you were ever lazy!" she said, with a smile.
"There is a large party to-night?" he said, presently.
She nodded.
"Yes: immense. The biggest thing we--I mean Sir Stephen--has done." Her eyes fell for a moment. "You will dance with me to-night--twice, Stafford?"
"As many times as you like, of course," he said. "But I shall not get so many opportunities. You will be too much sought after, as usual."
She sighed.
"That is the one disadvantage of being engaged to you," she said.
"Twice, then. The second and the eleventh waltz."
He nodded, and stood with the same absent preoccupation in his eyes; and she drew a little closer to him still; and as her eyes dwelt on his face with love"s hunger in them, she whispered:
"You have not kissed me yet, Stafford."
He bent and kissed her, and her lips clung to his in that most awful of appeals, the craving, the prayer from the soul that loves to the soul that refuses love in return.
"Ah, Stafford, if--if it were all over, and we were away in the country somewhere?"
"Why don"t we go?" he asked, with absolute indifference to the social plots and schemes which were being woven round him.