"Haven"t I always said so?"
"Then how can you expect us to like you when you are so--so wise?"
"I don"t expect you to like me."
She bit her lip and pretended to check a laugh.
"I suppose you enjoy this room?" she said, glancing round it till her eyes fell on a small crucifix which was nailed to the wall behind his chair; "it is so depressing. You are very perverse. And the odd thing is----"
"Well, what is the odd thing?"
"That you are attracted by Mrs. Parflete. Your style ought to be Saint Clare or Saint Elizabeth. But not at all. You prefer this exquisite, wayward, perfectly dressed, extremely young actress. You give your nature full play in your _taste_, at all events."
"You can urge that much in my favour, then?"
"Yes, that much. Oh, she"s pretty. But frivolous and light-hearted--as light-hearted as t.i.tania. There! I have been wondering what I could call her. She is t.i.tania in alabaster. Marble is too strong. At first, I thought it might be marble. I have changed my mind since. I suppose you know she will act in this comedy with Castrillon at the d"Alchingens?"
"So Disraeli has told me. Did you come to tell me that, also?"
She coloured, but met his angry glance without flinching. "Now," she thought, "he is going to show temper."
"I came to tell you that, also," she repeated. "Pensee is opposed to the whole scheme. Mrs. Parflete stamped her very beautiful foot, and said, "I go." Do you approve?"
"I am to meet Castrillon to-night at the Prince d"Alchingen"s," he answered, evading her question.
"How you hate him!"
"What makes you think so?"
"I know your face. I never saw any love there for anybody, but just then there was a look of hate."
"You are quite right. I do hate him."
"You are actually trembling at the mention of his name. Then you have feelings, after all." She clapped her hands, and leaving her chair walked toward him.
"Never hate me, will you?" she said, touching his arm. "Promise me that you will never hate me. Like me as much as you can."
At that instant, they heard a tap at the door, and the landlord, carrying a few letters on a salver, entered the room. Sara pulled down her veil--a foolish action, which she regretted a moment later. Orange thanked the man for the letters and threw them on the table. The landlord, with a studied air of discretion, which was the more insulting for its very slyness, went, half on tiptoe, out.
"Does he always bring your letters upstairs?" she asked.
"As a rule--no," said Orange.
"Then he came on purpose! He wanted to see me--what impudence! I am beginning to realise what one has to expect if one--if one takes an unconventional step."
Her voice failed, and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Then she covered her face with her hands.
"Every courageous--every disinterested act is unconventional," said Robert; "you are tired out--that"s all."
"You see," she answered, with a note of harsh sadness in her voice, "I have had a strange day. The scene with Beauclerk was a great strain. I feel a kind of apprehensiveness and terror--yes, terror, which I cannot describe. It may be my nerves, it may be fancy. But I am too conscious of being alive. Every minute seems vital. Every sound is acute. This day has been one long over-emphasis. Look at my hand: how it trembles!
Beauclerk called me a witch. Certainly, I am more sensitive to impressions than most people."
"One of these letters is from Reckage. It is written on a sheet of your own note-paper."
She dried her eyes, and looked at him with exultation, astonishment, and a certain incredulity.
"Then he must have listened to me. He posted it, after all, when he left the house. He is always impulsive. I remember now--that I saw him give something to the groom. Do read what he says."
The letter, scrawled hastily on the pale lilac note-paper affected by Sara and bearing her monogram, ran as follows:--
"MY DEAR OLD FELLOW,--There are still some points of arrangement very material to consider with regard to this Meeting next week, and I hope it is not too late to go into them. The thing cannot be done away. But the circ.u.mstances have become, thank G.o.d, very different indeed. Mr. Disraeli has asked me to speak in his stead at Hanborough--an honour so wholly unexpected and undeserved that I am forced to see in it an especial mark of encouragement. I must admit at once that I feel greatly flattered. I am not now to be taught what opinion I am to entertain of those gentlemen whose narrow and selfish principles forced me to move against my inclination, my judgment, and my convictions. I am persuaded that any additional public action--no matter how indirect on my part--in the Nomination of Temple would have at this juncture, the worse effect. It would savour of self-advertis.e.m.e.nt--an idea which I abhor. It would seem an _over-doing_, as it were, of my own importance. You will readily agree, I know, that I ought to keep perfectly quiet before, and for some time after, my Hanborough appearance. Not having in any degree changed my view upon this subject of the a.s.sociation, I don"t feel that my present decision is inconsistent. I think it will strike everybody as a sensible--the only sensible--course to follow.
"When can you dine? Or if you won"t dine, let me see you when you can spare half an hour.
"Yours affectionately,"
"BEAUCLERK."
Orange turned to Sara and said, when he had finished reading--
"I am glad he wrote."
"You knew him better than I did. He is still a poor creature, for, what does it all come to?--a rambling, stupid lie. The letter is sheer rubbish--a complete misrepresentation of the facts. But I need not have come. This always happens when women interfere between men," she added, bitterly; "you don"t want us. There"s a freemasonry among men. You excuse and justify and forgive each other always."
"You persuaded him to post this."
"That is true. He might have done so, however, without persuasion. In future, call me the busybody! I must go now. I have made you late for d"Alchingen"s dinner. What a lesson to those about to make themselves useful! And how right you were not to get bitter! I take things too much to heart. I must pray for flippancy. Then, perhaps, I may find no fault with this world, or with you, or with anybody!"
"I am bitter enough--don"t doubt it."
"No! no! let us a.s.sure each other that this is the best of all possible worlds--that Beauclerk shows cleverness and good sense, that no one tells lies, no one is treacherous, no one is unjust, malicious, or revengeful nowadays, that friends are friends, and enemies--merely divided in opinions! We must encourage ourselves in a cynical, good-natured toleration of all that is abject and detestable in mankind."
"You are too impatient, Lady Sara. You want life concentrated, like a play, into a few acts lasting, say, three hours. Whereas, most lives have no denouement--so far as lookers-on are concerned!"
"At last some one has been able to define me. I am "impatient." But you take refuge in that profound silence which is the philosophy of the strong; you don"t struggle against the general feeling; you content yourself by going your own gait quietly. You have pride enough to be--nothing, and ambition enough to do--everything. Hark! what is that?
They are calling out news in the street."
"The current lie," said Orange. "We don"t want to hear it."
Sara walked to the window and threw it open.
"I caught a name," she exclaimed. "It is something about Reckage ...
Listen ... Reckage!"
Above the din of the traffic, a hoa.r.s.e duet rose from the street--voice answering voice with a discordant reiteration of one phrase--"_Serious accident to Lord Reckage! Serious accident to Lord Reckage!_"
"My G.o.d, what are they saying? What are they saying? It is my imagination. It can"t be true. I am fancying things. What are they saying?"