"Not much."
"You used to be very fond of each other once, if I remember right?" said he.
"Yes, once."
"I often think how curious it is," went on Sir Eustace in a reflective tone, "to watch the various changes time brings about, especially where the affections are concerned. One sees children at the seaside making little mounds of sand, and they think, if they are very young children, that they will find them there to-morrow. But they reckon without their tide. To-morrow the sands will have swept as level as ever, and the little boys will have to begin again. It is like that with our youthful love affairs, is it not? The tide of time comes up and sweeps them away, fortunately for ourselves. Now in your case, for instance, it is, I think, a happy thing for both of you that your sandhouse did not last.
Is it not?"
Madeline sighed softly. "Yes, I suppose so," she answered.
Bottles, behind the curtains, rapidly reviewed the past, and came to a different conclusion.
"Well, that is all done with," said Sir Eustace cheerfully.
Madeline did not contradict him; she did not see her way to doing so just at present.
Then came a pause.
"Madeline," said Sir Eustace presently, in a changed voice, "I have something to say to you."
"Indeed, Sir Eustace," she answered, lifting her eyebrows again in her note of interrogation manner, "what is it?"
"It is this, Madeline--I want to ask you to be my wife."
The blue velvet curtains suddenly gave a jump as though they were a.s.sisting at at spiritualistic _seance_.
Sir Eustace looked at the curtains with warning in his eye.
Madeline saw nothing.
"Really, Sir Eustace!"
"I dare say I surprise you," went on this ardent lover; "my suit may seem a sudden one, but in truth it is nothing of the sort."
"O Lord, what a lie!" groaned the distracted Bottles.
"I thought, Sir Eustace," murmured Madeline in her sweet low voice, "that you told me not very long ago that you never meant to marry."
"Nor did I, Madeline, because I thought there was no chance of my marrying you" ("which I am sure I hope there isn"t," he added to himself). "But--but, Madeline, I love you." ("Heaven forgive me for that!") "Listen to me, Madeline, before you answer," and he drew his chair closer to her own. "I feel the loneliness of my position, and I want to get married. I think that we should suit each other very well.
At our age, now that our youth is past" (he could not resist this dig, at which Madeline winced), "probably neither of us would wish to marry anybody much our junior. I have had many opportunities lately, Madeline, of seeing the beauty of your character, and to the beauties of your person no man could be blind. I can offer you a good position, a good fortune, and myself, such as I am. Will you take me?" and he laid his hand upon hers and gazed earnestly into her eyes.
"Really, Sir Eustace," she murmured, "this is so very unexpected and sudden."
"Yes, Madeline, I know it is. I have no right to take you by storm in this way, but I trust you will not allow my precipitancy to weight against me. Take a little time to think it over--a week say" ("by which time," he reflected, "I hope to be in Algiers.") "Only, if you can, Madeline, tell me that I may hope."
She made no immediate answer, but, letting her hands fall idly in her lap, looked straight before her, her beautiful eyes fixed upon vacancy, and her mind amply occupied in considering the pros and cons of the situation. Then Sir Eustace took heart of grace; bending down, he kissed the Madonna-like face. Still there was no response. Only very gently she pushed him from her, whispering:
"Yes, Eustace, I think I shall be able to tell you that you may hope."
Bottles waited to see no more. With set teeth and flaming eyes he crept, a broken man, through the door that led on to the landing, crept down the stairs and into the hall. On the pegs were his hat and coat; he took them and pa.s.sed into the street.
"I have done a disgraceful thing," he thought, "and I have paid for it."
Softly as the door closed Sir Eustace heard it; and then he too left the room, murmuring, "I shall soon come for my answer, Madeline."
When he reached the street his brother was gone.
VI
Sir Eustace did not go straight back to the Albany, but, calling a hansom, drove down to his club.
"Well," he thought to himself, "I have played a good many curious parts in my time, but I never had to do with anything like this before. I only hope George is not much cut up. His eyes ought to be opened now. What a woman----" but we will not repeat Sir Eustace"s comments upon the lady to whom he was nominally half engaged.
At the club Sir Eustace met his friend the Under-Secretary, who had just escaped from the House. Thanks to information furnished to him that morning by Bottles, who had been despatched by Sir Eustace, in a penitent mood, to the Colonial Office to see him, he had just succeeded in confusing, if not absolutely in defeating, the impertinent people who "wanted to know." Accordingly he was jubilant, and greeted Sir Eustace with enthusiasm, and they sat talking together for an hour or more.
Then Sir Eustace, being, as has been said, of early habits, made his way home.
In his sitting-room he found his brother smoking and contemplating the fire.
"Hullo, old fellow!" he said, "I wish you had come to the club with me.
Atherleigh was there, and is delighted with you. What you told him this morning enabled him to smash up his enemies, and as the smashing lately has been rather the other way he is jubilant. He wants you to go to see him again to-morrow. Oh, by the way, you made your escape all right. I only hope I may be as lucky. Well, what do you think of your lady-love now?"
"I think," said Bottles slowly--"that I had rather not say what I do think."
"Well, you are not going to marry her now, I suppose?"
"No, I shall not marry her."
"That is all right; but I expect that it will take _me_ all I know to get clear of her. However, there are some occasions in life when one is bound to sacrifice one"s own convenience, and this is one of them. After all, she is really very pretty in the evening, so it might have been worse."
Bottles winced, and Sir Eustace took a cigarette.
"By the way, old fellow," he said, as he settled himself in his chair again, "I hope you are not put out with me over this. Believe me, you have no cause to be jealous; she does not care a hang about me, it is only the t.i.tle and the money. If a fellow who was a lord and had a thousand a year more proposed to her to-morrow she would chuck me up and take him."
"No; I am not angry with you," said Bottles; "you meant kindly, but I am angry with myself. It was not honourable to--in short, play the spy upon a woman"s weakness."
"You are very scrupulous," yawned Sir Eustace; "all means are fair to catch a snake. Dear me, I nearly exploded once or twice; it was better than [yawn] any [yawn] play," and Sir Eustace went to sleep.
Bottles sat still and stared at the fire.
Presently his brother woke up with a start. "Oh, you are there, are you, Bottles?" (it was the first time he had called him by that name since his return.) "Odd thing; but do you know that I was dreaming that we were boys again, and trout-fishing in the old Cantlebrook stream. I dreamt that I hooked a big fish, and you were so excited that you jumped right into the river after it--you did once, you remember--and the river swept you away and left me on the bank; most unpleasant dream. Well, good night, old boy. I vote we go down and have some trout-fishing together in the spring. G.o.d bless you!"
"Good night," said Bottles, gazing affectionately after his brother"s departing form.
Then he too rose and went to his bedroom. On a table stood a battered old tin despatch-box--the companion of all his wanderings. He opened it and took from it first a little bottle of chloral.
"Ah," he said, "I shall want you if I am to sleep again." Setting the bottle down, he extracted from a dirty envelope one or two letters and a faded photograph. It was the same that used to hang over his bed in his quarters at Maritzburg. These he destroyed, tearing them into small bits with his strong brown fingers.