She blushed as she asked the question; but he was too absorbed in the fatal game of pa.s.sion to notice her embarra.s.sment.
"The flower?" he said unthinkingly. "It is nearly faded already; too poor an offering to make you, Miss Lorton; but if you will accept it----"
He had expected her to refuse laughingly, but she replied simply:
"Thank you; yes, I should like to have it," and in his surprise he took it from his coat, and, with a bow, handed it to her, wished her good night, and left her. At the door he paused and looked in the direction of Lady Wolfer, met her eyes for an instant, then went out.
Nell was about to place the flower on the table, but, quite unthinkingly, stuck it in the bosom of her dress. As she was crossing the room to some people who were taking their departure, the earl came up to her.
"I am going to the library presently, and may not see Lady Wolfer before I leave. Will you please tell her that I hope she will not go out to-night? I think she is looking tired--and--and overstrained. Do you not think so?"
His tone was so full of anxiety, there was so sad and strained an expression in his grave face, as he looked toward his young wife, who was talking rather loudly and laughing in a way women will when there is anything but laughter in their hearts, that Nell"s sympathy went out to him. It was as if suddenly she understood how much he cared for the woman who was wife to him in little more than the name.
"Yes, yes! I will tell her," she said. "I am sure she will not go if you do not wish it."
He smiled bitterly, and, for once dropping the cold reserve which usually masked him, said, with sad bitterness:
"You think she considers my wishes so closely?"
Nell looked up at him, half frightened by the intensity of his expression.
"Why--yes!" she faltered.
He smiled as bitterly as he had spoken; then his manner changed suddenly, and his eyes became fixed on the flower in her dress.
"Where did you get that flower? Who----" he asked, almost sternly.
Nell"s face flamed; then, ashamed of the uncalled-for blush, she laughed.
"Sir Archie Walbrooke gave it me," she said.
The earl looked at her with surprise, which gradually changed to a keen scrutiny, under which Nell felt her blush rising again. But she said nothing, and, after a moment during which he seemed to be considering deeply, he pa.s.sed on, his hands clasped behind his tall figure, his head bent.
Immediately the last guest had gone, Lady Wolfer went to her own apartments. Nell stood in the center of the vast and now empty room, and looked round her absently, and with that sense of some pending calamity which we call presentiment.
Innocent of the world and its intrigues, as she was, she could not fail to have seen that neither the earl nor the countess was happy; and that the endless work and excitement in which they endeavored to absorb themselves only left them dissatisfied and wretched.
She liked them both; indeed, she had grown very fond of Lady Wolfer, and her heart ached for the woman who had striven to hide her unhappiness behind the mask of a forced gayety and recklessness. For a moment, a single moment, as she caught sight of the flower, a vague suspicion of the danger which threatened the countess arose in Nell"s mind; but she put the suspicion from her with a shudder, for it was too dreadful to be entertained.
Sometimes she went to Lady Wolfer"s room after she had retired, and, remembering the earl"s message, she went now upstairs and knocked at the countess" door.
A low voice bade her come in, and Nell entered and found Lady Wolfer sitting on a low chair before the fire. She was alone, and the figure crouching before the blaze, as if she were cold, aroused Nell"s pity.
She crossed the room and bent over her.
"Are you ill, dear, or only tired?" she asked gently.
Lady Wolfer started and looked up at her, and Nell saw that her face was white and drawn.
"Is it you?" she said. "I thought it was Wardell"--Wardell was her maid.
"Yes, I am tired."
"Lord Wolfer has asked me to beg you not to go out to-night. He saw that you looked tired," she said.
Lady Wolfer gazed in the fire, and her lips curled sarcastically.
"He is very considerate," she said. "Extraordinarily so! One would think he cared whether I was tired or not, wouldn"t one, eh, dear?"
"Why do you say that, and so bitterly?" Nell said, in a low voice. "Of course he cares. He is always kind and thoughtful."
Lady Wolfer rose abruptly and, with a short, hard laugh, began to pace up and down the room.
"He does not care in the least!" she said, in a harsh, strained voice.
"Why did you come in to-night? I wish you hadn"t! I--I wanted to be alone. No, do not go! Stay, now you are here," for Nell had moved to the door. She went back and laid her hand on the unhappy woman"s arm.
"Won"t you tell me what is the matter?" she said.
Lady Wolfer stopped and sank into the chair again.
"I"m almost tempted to!" she said, with a reckless laugh. "It might be useful to you--as a "frightful example," as the temperance people say.
Oh, don"t you know? You are young and innocent, Nell, but--but you cannot fail to have seen how wretched I am! Nell, you are not only young and innocent, but beautiful. You have all your life before you--you, too, will have to choose your fate--for we do choose it! Don"t wreck your life as I have wrecked mine; don"t, don"t marry a man who does not love you--as I did!"
"Hush!" said Nell, startled and shocked. "You are wrong, quite wrong!"
Lady Wolfer laughed bitterly.
"I"ve said too much; I may as well tell you all," she said, with a shrug of her white shoulders. "It was a marriage of convenience. We--my people--were poor, and it was a great match for me. There was no talk of love--love!" She laughed again, and the laugh made Nell wince. "It was just a bargain. Such bargains are made every day in this vile marriage market of ours. I was as innocent as you, Nell. The glitter of the thing--the t.i.tle, the big house, the position--dazzled me. I thought I should be more contented and satisfied. Other girls have done the same thing, and they seemed happy enough. But I suppose I am different. I wearied of the whole thing--the t.i.tle, the big house, the diamonds, everything--before the first month. I wanted something else; I scarcely knew what----Ah, yes, I did! I did! I wanted love--the thing they all laugh and sneer at! I had sold myself for gold and place and power, and when I had gotten them they all turned to Dead Sea fruit, dust and ashes, on my lips!"
She gripped her hands tightly, and bent lower over the fire, and Nell sank on her knees beside her, pale herself, and incapable of speech.
"For a time I tried to bear it, to live the weary, dragging life; then, when I was nearly mad--I tried to find relief in the world outside my own home. I was supposed to be clever--clever! I could write and talk. I took up this woman"s rights business!" She laughed again. "All the time they were lauding me to the skies and flattering and fooling me, I knew how stupid the whole thing was. But it seemed the only chance for me, the only way of forgetting myself and--and my slavery. At any rate, it served as an excuse for getting out of the house, for not inflicting my presence upon the man who had bought me, and who regarded me simply as the figurehead for his table, the person to receive his guests and play the necessary part in his public life."
"No, no! You"re wrong, wrong!" said Nell earnestly.
Lady Wolfer seemed scarcely to have heard her.
"I ought to have known that it would not help me long. It has come to an end. I am going to end it. I cannot bear this life any longer--I cannot, I cannot! I will not! I have only one life--that I know of----"
"Oh, hush, hush!" Nell implored. "You are all wrong! I know it, I am sure of it! You think he does not care for you. He does, he does! If you had seen his face to-night--had heard his voice!"
Lady Wolfer looked at her with a half-startled glance; then she shook her head and smiled bitterly.
"No, I am not wrong," she said. "I know what love is--at last! It beckons me--I have resisted--G.o.d knows I have struggled with and fought against it--have kept it from me with both hands--but my strength has failed me at last, and----"
Nell caught her arm and clung to it.
"Oh, what do you mean?" she asked, in vague terror.
Lady Wolfer started, and slowly unclasped Nell"s hands.