How beautifully hung the yellow loop of her hair as she leaned over the board! How gracious she was and like a G.o.ddess with these boys, as he called them! She rallied her partner, not letting him forget that he had the honour of being her partner; while she appeared envious of Algernon"s skill, and talked to both and got them upon common topics, and laughed, and was like a fair English flower of womanhood; nothing deadly.
"There, Algy; you have beaten us. I don"t think I"ll have Lord Suckling for my partner any more," she said, putting up her wand, and pouting.
"You don"t bear malice?" said Algernon, revived.
"There is my hand. Now you must play a game alone with Lord Suckling, and beat him; mind you beat him, or it will redound to my discredit."
With which, she and Edward left them.
"Algy was a little crestfallen, and no wonder," she said. "He is soon set up again. They will be good friends now."
"Isn"t it odd, that they should be ready to risk their lives for trifles?"
Thus Edward tempted her to discuss the subject which he had in his mind.
She felt intuitively the trap in his voice.
"Ah, yes," she replied; "it must be because they know their lives are not precious."
So utterly at her mercy had he fallen, that her p.r.o.nunciation of that word "precious" carried a severe sting to him, and it was not spoken with peculiar emphasis; on the contrary, she wished to indicate that she was of his way of thinking, as regarded this decayed method of settling disputes. He turned to leave her.
"You go to your Adeline, I presume," she said.
"Ah! that reminds me. I have never thanked you."
"For my good services? such as they are. Sir William will be very happy, and it was for him, a little more than for you, that I went out of my way to be a matchmaker."
"It was her character, of course, that struck you as being so eminently suited to mine."
"Can I tell what is the character of a girl? She is mild and shy, and extremely gentle. In all probability she has a pa.s.sion for battles and bloodshed. I judged from your father"s point of view. She has money, and you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to be a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi!
Heiresses may cry it like kingdoms."
"I thought," said Edward, meaningly, "the colonel had better taste."
"Do you not know that my friends are my friends because they are not allowed to dream they will do anything else? If they are taken poorly, I commend them to a sea-voyage--Africa, the North-West Pa.s.sage, the source of the Nile. Men with their vanity wounded may discover wonders! They return friendly as before, whether they have done the Geographical Society a service or not. That is, they generally do."
"Then I begin to fancy I must try those lat.i.tudes."
"Oh! you are my relative."
He scarcely knew that he had uttered "Margaret."
She replied to it frankly, "Yes, Cousin Ned. You have made the voyage, you see, and have come back friends with me. The variability of opals!
Ah! Sir John, you join us in season. We were talking of opals. Is the opal a gem that stands to represent women?"
Sir John Capes smoothed his knuckles with silken palms, and with courteous antique grin, responded, "It is a gem I would never dare to offer to a lady"s acceptance."
"It is by repute unlucky; so you never can have done so.
"Exquisite!" exclaimed the veteran in smiles, "if what you deign to imply were only true!"
They entered the drawing-room among the ladies.
Edward whispered in Mrs. Lovell"s ear, "He is in need of the voyage."
"He is very near it," she answered in the same key, and swam into general conversation.
Her cold wit, Satanic as the gleam of it struck through his mind, gave him a throb of desire to gain possession of her, and crush her.
CHAPTER XXII
The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and abandoned as a sickening task. Like an idle boy with his holiday imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, "How can I sit down and lie to her!" and thinking that silence would prepare her bosom for the coming truth.
Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love. There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not abruptly strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually stifling shadows. When the last convulsions come they are not terrific; the frame has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural decay. It seems the kindest way of doing a cruel thing. But Dahlia wrote, crying out her agony at the torture. Possibly your nervously organized natures require a modification of the method.
Edward now found himself able to conduct a correspondence. He despatched the following:--
"My Dear Dahlia,--Of course I cannot expect you to be aware of the bewildering occupations of a country house, where a man has literally not five minutes" time to call his own; so I pa.s.s by your reproaches. My father has gone at last. He has manifested an extraordinary liking for my society, and I am to join him elsewhere --perhaps run over to Paris (your city)--but at present for a few days I am my own master, and the first thing I do is to attend to your demands: not to write "two lines," but to give you a good long letter.
"What on earth makes you fancy me unwell? You know I am never unwell. And as to your nursing me--when has there ever been any need for it?
"You must positively learn patience. I have been absent a week or so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house! Such ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about unprotected, let me give you warning. You have my full permission to walk out in the Parks for exercise. I think you are bound to do it, for your health"s sake.
"Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks. You must learn that you are no longer a child. Cease to write like a child. If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware it is not because you are becoming plain. You do not mean it, I know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that is to me exceedingly distasteful. Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
Women are subject to it--and it is quite innocent, no doubt. I won"t lecture you.
"My cousin Algernon is here with me. He has not spoken of your sister. Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary. He is attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty, and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about having seen one day in Wrexby Church. Her lady"s-maid is a Frenchwoman, which accounts for it. You have not forgotten the boulevards?
"I wish you to go on with your lessons in French. Educate yourself, and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints. I recommend you to read the newspapers daily. Buy nice picture-books, if the papers are too matter-of-fact for you. By looking eternally inward, you teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will be, that you wither. No const.i.tution can stand it. All the ladies here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to men upon men"s themes. It is impossible to explain to you how wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief that they are not mortal.
"Parliament opens in February. My father wishes me to stand for Selborough. If he or some one will do the talking to the tradesmen, and provide the beer and the bribes, I have no objection. In that case my Law goes to the winds. I"m bound to make a show of obedience, for he has scarcely got over my summer"s trip. He holds me a prisoner to him for heaven knows how long--it may be months.
"As for the heiress whom he has here to make a match for me, he and I must have a pitched battle about her by and by. At present my purse insists upon my not offending him. When will old men understand young ones? I burn your letters, and beg you to follow the example. Old letters are the dreariest ghosts in the world, and you cannot keep more treacherous rubbish in your possession. A discovery would exactly ruin me.
"Your purchase of a black-velvet bonnet with pink ribands, was very suitable. Or did you write "blue" ribands? But your complexion can bear anything.
"You talk of being annoyed when you walk out. Remember, that no woman who knows at all how to conduct herself need for one moment suffer annoyance.
"What is the "feeling" you speak of? I cannot conceive any "feeling" that should make you helpless when you consider that you are insulted. There are women who have natural dignity, and women who have none.
"You ask the names of the gentlemen here:--Lord Carey, Lord Wippern (both leave to-morrow), Sir John Capes, Colonel Barclay, Lord Suckling. The ladies:--Mrs. Gosling, Miss Gosling, Lady Carey.
Mrs. Anybody--to any extent.
"They pluck hen"s feathers all day and half the night. I see them out, and make my bow to the next batch of visitors, and then I don"t know where I am.