"What! Then how, in the name of Heaven, do you know--she wants--what you ask?"
"There can"t be any doubt about that," said the girl, firmly.
With all his tenderness for her, so little still did he understand what she was going through, that he plainly thought all her pain had come of knowing that this other page was in his life--he had no glimpse of the girl"s pa.s.sionate need to think of that same long-turned-over page as unmarred by the darker blot.
"You absurd, ridiculous child!" With immense relief he dropped into the nearest chair. "Then all this is just your own unaided invention. Well, I could thank G.o.d!" He pa.s.sed his handkerchief over his face.
"For what are you thanking G.o.d?"
He sat there obviously thinking out his plan of action.
"Suppose--I"m not going to risk it--but _suppose_----" He looked up, and at the sight of Jean"s face he rose with an expression strangely gentle.
The rather hard eyes were softened in a sudden mist. "Whether _I_ deserve to suffer or not, it"s quite certain _you_ don"t. Don"t cry, dear one. It never was the real thing. I had to wait till I knew you before I understood."
Her own eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g as she lifted them in a pa.s.sion of grat.i.tude to his face.
"Oh! is that true? Loving you has made things clear to me I didn"t dream of before. If I could think that because of me you were able to do this----"
"You go back to that?" He seized her by the shoulders, and said hoa.r.s.ely, "Look here! Do you seriously ask me to give up the girl I love--to go and offer to marry a woman that even to think of----"
"You cared for her once!" she cried. "You"ll care about her again. She is beautiful and brilliant--_every_thing. I"ve heard she could win any man----"
He pushed the girl from him. "She"s bewitched you!" He was halfway to the door.
"Geoffrey, Geoffrey, you aren"t going away like that? This isn"t _the end_?"
The face he turned back upon her was dark and hesitating. "I suppose if she refused me, you"d----"
"She won"t refuse you."
"She did once."
"She didn"t refuse to marry you."
As she pa.s.sed him on the way to her sitting-room he caught her by the arm.
"Stop!" he said, glancing about like one hunting desperately for a means of gaining a few minutes. "Lady John is waiting all this time at my house for the car to go back with a message."
"_That"s_ not a matter of life and death!" she said, with all the impatience of the young at that tyranny of little things which seems to hold its unrelenting sway, though the battlements of righteousness are rocking, and the tall towers of love are shaken to the nethermost foundation-stones.
"No, it"s not a matter of life and death," Stonor said quietly. "All the same, I"ll go down and give the order."
"Very well." Of her own accord this time she stopped on her way to that other door, behind which was the Past and the Future incarnate in one woman. "I"ll wait," said Jean. She went to the table. Sitting there with her face turned from him, she said, quite low, "You"ll come back, if you"re the man I pray you are."
Her self-control seemed all at once to fail. She leaned her elbows on the table and broke into a flood of silent tears, with face hidden in her hands.
He came swiftly back, and bent over her a moved, adoring face.
"Dearest of all the world," he began, in that beautiful voice of his.
His arms were closing round her, when the door on the left was softly opened. Vida Levering stood on the threshold.
CHAPTER XVIII
She drew back as soon as she saw him, but Stonor had looked round. His face darkened as he stood there an instant, silently challenging her.
Not a word spoken by either of them, no sound but the faint, m.u.f.fled sobbing of the girl, who sat with hidden face. With a look of speechless anger, the man went out and shut the doors behind him. Not seeing, only hearing that he had gone, Jean threw her arms out across the table in an abandonment of grief. The other woman laid on a chair the hat and cloak that she was carrying. Then she went slowly across the room and stood silent a moment at Jean"s side.
"What is the matter?"
The girl started. Impossible for her to speak in that first moment. But when she had dried her eyes, she said, with a pathetic childish air--
"I--I"ve been seeing Geoffrey."
"Is this the effect "seeing Geoffrey" has?" said the other, with an attempt at lightness.
"You see, I know now," Jean explained, with the brave directness that was characteristic.
The more sophisticated woman presented an aspect totally unenlightened.
"I know how he"--Jean dropped her eyes--"how he spoiled some one else"s life."
"Who tells you that?" asked Miss Levering.
"Several people have told me."
"Well, you should be very careful how you believe what you hear."
"You know it"s true!" said the girl, pa.s.sionately.
"I know that it"s possible to be mistaken."
"I see! You"re trying to shield him----"
"Why should I? What is it to me?"
"Oh-h, how you must love him!" she said with tears.
"I? Listen to me," said Vida, gravely. As she drew up a chair the girl rose to her feet.
"What"s the use--what"s the use of your going on denying it?" As she saw Vida was about to break in, she silenced her with two words, "_Geoffrey doesn"t._" And with that she fled away to the window.
Vida half rose, and then relinquished the idea of following the girl, seemed presently to forget her, and sat as one alone with sorrow. When Jean had mastered herself, she came slowly back. Not till she was close to the motionless figure did the girl lift her eyes.
"Oh, don"t look like that," the girl prayed. "I shall bring him back to you."