Lord Loveland, hardly knowing what he said or did in the persistent nightmare from which he could not wake, called the waiter to him, from ambush behind his chair.
The man came, with eyes cast patiently down, not to meet the angry blaze turned dangerously upon him. He knew that something was wrong, very wrong, indeed, but it was not his affair, except that he was consumed with honest curiosity, and he did not wish grievances to be visited on him.
"There must be some mistake here," said Loveland, folding up the paper, and replacing the three sheets in the envelope, with fingers that were not quite steady. "This can"t be for me. You see, there"s no name on the thing. You"ve brought it to the wrong person."
"No--o, sir," returned the servant. "I was told to bring it to you. If there"s a mistake, sir, it isn"t me who"s made it."
"Very well, then, somebody else has," insisted Loveland. "I tell you this can"t possibly be meant for me. Give the envelope back to whoever gave it to you, and ask him to hand it to the manager, saying that in error it was delivered to Lord Loveland."
"Yes, sir." The waiter obediently took charge of the offensive envelope, and ambled away with it, to confer at a distance with the person from whom it had been received five minutes ago. There were a few gestures, a few shrugs, and then the two approached Lord Loveland"s table together.
"It"s quite right, sir," murmured the newcomer. "The letter _is_ for you, sir. There"s no mistake." As if by way of reminder he gently laid the envelope down on the table, in the place where those iced Blue Points never would be now.
Deadly white under his brown tan, Val rose without a word, crumpling the envelope in a hand that itched to clutch someone by the throat, and flinging down a silver dollar for the waiter. The Coolidges and their party were still at the violet-decked table as Loveland pa.s.sed by, but he did not see them. He had forgotten their existence.
"Papa, the Major _has_ done it!" exclaimed Elinor Coolidge, looking across at her father, who sat between Mrs. Milton and f.a.n.n.y.
"Yes, he has done it," replied Mr. Coolidge, smiling the wooden smile which was of fair, carved ivory when reproduced on the beautiful face of his daughter. "I don"t know what"s come over the Major since this morning. He seemed to love that Englishman like a son, on board the _Mauretania_; but tonight he fairly jumped out of himself with joy when he heard Van Cotter"s piece of news."
"I"m sure we were all as nice as we could be to Lord--to _him_,"
faltered f.a.n.n.y Milton, who had drained the lake from her eyes when no one was looking, but only to make way, it seemed, for a new supply of salt water.
"Oh, speak for yourself, f.a.n.n.y," said Mrs. Milton, with her exaggerated English accent. "As for me, I----"
"Why, Mamma, you were just _lovely_ to him, every minute!" cried the girl, defending herself briskly. "If you weren"t married, with a grown-up daughter, people might have thought you were in love with him yourself, sometimes."
"Nonsense!" retorted f.a.n.n.y"s mother, darting a furious look at her child. "The way you talk shows you"re _not_ grown up."
"I always thought he was the most conceited young man I ever saw," broke in Elinor Coolidge. "I could have boxed his ears often, and it would have served him right. I just enjoy this. It"s like a play."
"Well, I think that"s real mean of you, Elinor," said f.a.n.n.y. "And I don"t see how you can feel that way. He looks so pale--it makes me sick to think what he"s got to go through, poor fellow, and he"s so handsome!
Did you ever see anything as beautiful as he looked just now when he went stalking by us with his head high, and his face pale, and his eyes like blue fire?"
"I certainly never saw a British "Lord" as handsome. They don"t make "em like that," said good-looking Henry van Cotter; and then they all laughed--all except f.a.n.n.y Milton. She was wondering what Lesley Dearmer would do, if she were here tonight, instead of tearing away towards Louisville as fast as an express train could carry her. Lesley had been Loveland"s friend, in quite an unpretending, humble little way, knowing that she was no match for him, and never could be. But Lesley was a strange girl. She thought of such odd, original things to do. Would she do anything odd and original if she were here now? And if she did, would it be for or against the man who was down?
As it happened, Lesley was thinking of Lord Loveland at that very moment. Perhaps it was a kind of telepathy which brought her image so clearly before f.a.n.n.y Milton"s eyes; for Lesley"s thoughts included f.a.n.n.y.
It was not yet time for the coloured porters to begin "making down" the beds in the sleeping cars, and Lesley and her aunt sat opposite one another, each with a book in her hand. Mrs. Loveland had a story of the South, as she could dimly remember it, before the Civil War, and she was reading with interest half sad, half pleased. Lesley had a novel, too, one which had been making quite a sensation while she was in Europe, and her aunt had bought it for her in the Grand Central Station, before taking the train. She had often said that she would like to read the book, but now, though her eyes travelled from one line to another, and she mechanically turned a page here and there, she did not even know the names of the characters, or what they were saying or doing.
The panting of the great engine and the rushing roar of the wheels had come to have a refrain for her. "Never again--never again," she heard them say, as if the words were shouted spitefully into her ears. "Never see him again--never again. He"ll forget you--forget you. Soon he"ll marry--marry some rich girl."
Then she wondered who the rich girl would be. Elinor Coolidge, perhaps?
Elinor was very rich, and very beautiful, and already very proud.
Everything about her was superlative. A great many glowing descriptive adjectives were called for, when one only thought about Elinor, and Lesley"s experience as a story-writer had made her expert with adjectives--painfully expert, it seemed now, as her imagination ran ahead--even ahead of the rushing train--to picture Elinor as a bride.
"Oh, I"m sure she wouldn"t make him happy!" Lesley thought, and then asked herself whether Lord Loveland deserved to be happy.
No, of course he didn"t deserve happiness with a girl he married for money. Yet Lesley couldn"t bear to think of him as miserable or disappointed in life. The brilliant sparks which showered past the train windows seemed to her like the moments she had spent with Loveland, moments left behind for ever now, and she could not help wishing that she might live them over again.
"Perhaps I might have helped him to be different, if I"d tried," she said to herself, as she watched the specks of fire which flashed and died. "But I _didn"t_ try. I was too proud to try, I suppose. It was a silly kind of pride, for he could be--he could be such a _man_, if he knew himself, and would live up to himself."
Elinor could not help him to do that. She was not the kind of girl to dream of the existence of that real self, of which Lesley had fancied she caught glimpses sometimes, as if behind a veil that never had been torn aside. Miss Coolidge would be well enough satisfied with Lord Loveland as he was, for she would only want from him material things, such things as she could afford to buy with her money. And if they married, the bright loveableness in Val"s nature would be clouded and obscured. He would grow hard, and wholly selfish.
But with f.a.n.n.y Milton, if he should marry her?
It was just as Lesley asked herself this question, that f.a.n.n.y"s thoughts flew to Lesley, wondering what Lesley would do if she saw Lord Loveland held up to public scorn.
"f.a.n.n.y would love him," Lesley reflected. "But----" Her mind paused at that "But," and she took herself to task for mean jealousy because it was in her head, or her heart, that f.a.n.n.y would not love him in the way best for his highest development. "She"d spoil and pet him, and make him worse than he is now, because it"s a strong tonic, not a diet of sugar that he needs. And if he said a cross word, or looked at another woman, f.a.n.n.y would cry."
Although Lesley knew that all this was true, still she was afraid that jealousy of a girl looked upon by Lord Loveland as eligible, was really the foundation of her argument.
"I _am_ jealous," she admitted, "although I have no right to be. I could have made him care enough about me to lose his head and say that if I"d promise to marry him, he"d count the world well lost. Oh, yes, I could have done that! I know it. But how would he have felt, the minute the words were out of his mouth? He"d have regretted them bitterly, and thought himself mad. Then, even if I"d said "no"--which I would have said, of course,--he"d have thought forever with a kind of wild horror of the narrow escape he"d had, and all his memory of me would have been spoiled. Oh, I"m glad, glad, I kept it to friendship from first to last, and laughed at him always! I told him that he"d forget, and that I wanted him to forget; but I don"t, and he won"t. Just because we were friends, and because I laughed, and was different from the others, he"ll remember--even years from now, when he"s married, and the world has given him all it can."
Of course Lesley ought not to have been glad that Loveland would remember her as the one dear blessing he had been denied, and think of her when it would be more suitable that he should be thinking of his Marchioness; but she was glad, with a kind of fierce gladness that hurt, and made her young face look strained in the crude white light of the sleeping-car.
"Dear me, Lesley, that must be an exciting book!" complained Aunt Barbara. "I"ve spoken to you twice without your hearing."
"I"m so sorry, dear," said Lesley.
"What"s it about?" asked the elder woman, who had dutifully put away her novel, because it had occurred to her that it was time to go to bed.
"About?" echoed Lesley. "Oh--about love. And marrying the wrong people."
"What a pity!" sighed Aunt Barbara. "I do think stories ought all to end well, don"t you?"
"Some can"t," said the girl. "It wouldn"t be for the best, I suppose, if they did."
"You look tired, dear," said Mrs. Loveland. "How happy and peaceful we shall feel when we"re at home again."
"I wonder?" answered Lesley. But she whispered the words too softly for Aunt Barbara to hear.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Exit Lord Loveland
Loveland walked out of the dining-room of the Waldorf-Astoria hardly knowing what he meant to do.
His wish was to punish those who had insulted him; but how?--was the question ringing in his brain. A gentleman could not knock down a management, or punch its head. "A Management" seemed intangible, out of reach.
Val"s first thought was to march up to the desk, and "have a row" with somebody, but an instant"s reflection showed him that it would be more in accordance with dignity to go to his own quarters and command a representative of the "Management" to come to him.