"In this little room?"
"No, "tis in the larger room, but----"
"Nay," she interrupted, "our absence will be enough remarked as it is.
Clemence will read me a lecture on the proprieties all the way home."
Consequently we returned to the house, and the Countess took her leave shortly with the rest of the company; but as I conducted her to the door, she said a strange thing to me.
"Mr. Buckler," she said, "you should be angry more often," and so with another laugh she walked away.
That night, as I sat smoking a pipe upon the lawn, I saw something flash and sparkle in the rays of the moon, and I remembered that Elmscott"s buckles still lay where they had fallen. Picking them up, I returned to my seat and fell straightway into a very bitter train of thought. "Twas the recollection of the Countess" indignation that set me on it, for since the mere gift could provoke so stormy and sincere an outburst, how would it have been, I reflected, had she really known who the giver was? The thought pressed in upon me all the more heavily for the reason which she had offered to account for her anger. She set a value upon my esteem, and no small value either; so much she had told me plainly. Now it had been my lot hitherto to meet with a half-contemptuous tolerance rather than esteem; so that this unwonted appreciation shown by the one person from whom I most desired it filled me with a deep grat.i.tude, and obliged me in her service. Yet here was I requiting her with a calculating and continuous deception.
"Twas no longer of any use to argue that Count Lukstein had received no greater punishment than his treachery merited; that but for his last coward thrust he would have escaped even that; that the advantage of the encounter had been on his side from first to last, since I was chilled to the bone with my long vigil upon the terrace parapet. Such excuses were the merest thistledown, and it needed but a breath from her to blow them into air. The solid stalk of my thoughts was: "I was deceiving her." And it was not merely the knowledge of my concealments which tortured me, but an antic.i.p.ation of the disdain and contempt into which her kindliness would turn, should she ever discover the truth.
For so closely had the idea and notion of her become inwoven in my being that I ever estimated my actions and purposes by imagining the judgment which she would be like to pa.s.s on them, and, indeed, saw no true image of myself at all save that which was reflected from the mirror of her thoughts.
I came then to consider what path I should follow. There were three ways open to my choice. I might go on as heretofore, practising my duplicity; or, again, I might pack my trunks and scurry ignominiously back to my estate; or I might take my courage between my two hands and tell the truth of the matter to the Countess, be the consequences what they might.
Doubtless the last was the only honest course, and if I did not bring myself to adopt it--well, I paid dearly enough for the fault. At the time, however, the objections appeared to me insurmountable. In the first place, my natural timidity cried out against this hazard of all my happiness upon a single throw. Then, again, how could I tell her the truth? For it was not merely myself that the story accused, nor indeed in the main, but her husband. His treachery towards me in the actual righting of the duel I might conceal, but not his treachery to Julian, and I shrank from inflicting such shame upon her pride as the disclosure must inevitably bring.
I deem it right to set out here the questions which so troubled me, with a view to the proper understanding of this story. For on the very next day, while I was still debating the matter in great abas.e.m.e.nt and despondency, an incident occurred which determined me upon a compromise.
It happened in this way. I had ridden out into the country early in the morning, hoping that a vigorous gallop might help me to some solution of my perplexities, and returning home in the evening, chanced to be in my dressing-room shortly after seven of the clock.
My valet announced that Lord Culverton and my cousin were below, and I sent word down that I would be with them in the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes. Elmscott, however, followed the servant up the stairs, and coming into the room entertained me with the latest gossip, walking about the while that he talked. In the middle of a sentence he stopped before the window which, as I have said, overlooked the Park, and broke off his speech with a sudden exclamation. I crossed to where he stood, wishing to see what had brought him so abruptly to a stop. The walks, however, were empty and deserted, it being the fashion among the gentry of the town rather to favour Hyde Park at this hour. A chair, certainly, stood at no great distance, but the porters were smoking their pipes as they leaned against the poles, and I inferred from that that it had no occupant.
"Wait," said Elmscott; "the wall of your garden hides them for the moment."
As he spoke, two figures emerged from its shelter and walked into the open. I gave a start as I saw them, and gripped Elmscott by the arm.
"Lord!" said he, "are you in so deep as that?"
The woman I knew at the first glance. The easy carriage of her head, the light grace of her walk, were qualities which I had noted and admired too often to make the ghost of a doubt possible. The man, who was gaily dressed in a scarlet coat, an instinct of jealousy told me was Hugh Marston. Their backs were towards the house, and I waited for them to turn, which they did after they had walked some hundred paces.
Sure enough my suspicions were correct. The Countess was escorted by Marston, her hand was upon his arm, and the pair sauntered slowly, stopping here and there in their walk as though greatly concerned with one another.
"d.a.m.n him!" I cried. "d.a.m.n him!"
Elmscott burst into a laugh.
"The pretty Countess," said he, "would be more discreet did she but know you overlooked her."
"But she does know," I returned. "She knows that I lodge in the house; she knows also that this room is mine."
"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a tone of comprehension, "she knows that!"
"Ay; and "twas no further back than yesterday that she discovered it.
I told her myself."
Elmscott remained silent for a while, watching their promenade. Again they disappeared within the shelter of the wall; again they emerged from it, and again they promenaded some hundred paces and turned.
"I thought so," he muttered; ""tis all of a piece."
I asked what his words meant.
"You remember the evening at the Duke"s Theatre, when she caught sight of you across the pit? One might have imagined she would not have had you see her on such close terms with our friend; that she feared you might mistake her courtesy for proof of some deeper feeling."
"Well?" I asked, remembering how he had chuckled through the evening.
For such in truth had been my thought, and I had drawn no small comfort from it.
"Well, she saw you long ere that; she saw you the moment she entered the box, before I pointed her out to you. For she looked straight in your direction and spoke to the Frenchwoman, nodding towards you."
"No, it is impossible!" I replied. I recollected how her hand had fallen upon mine, and the musical sound of her words--"the occasion may come, too." "There is no trace of the coquette about her. This must be a mistake."
"It is you who are making it. Add her behaviour now," he waved his hand to the window, "to what I have told you! See how the incidents fit together. Yesterday she finds out your room commands the Park, to-day she walks in Marston"s company underneath the window, and backwards and forwards, mark that! never moving out of range. "Tis all part of one purpose."
"But what purpose?" I cried pa.s.sionately. "What purpose could she serve?"
"The devil knows!" he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It is of a woman we are speaking--you forget that."
I flung open the window noisily, in a desire to attract their attention and observe how the Countess would take our discovery of her interview. But she paid not the slightest heed to the sound. Elmscott made a sudden dash to the door.
"Culverton!" he cried over the bal.u.s.ter.
I tried to check him, for I had no wish that Culverton"s meddlesome fingers should pry into the matter. I was too late, however; he entered the room, and Elmscott drew him to the open window.
"Burn me, but "tis the oddest thing!" he smirked.
For a minute or so we stood watching the couple in silence. Then the Countess dropped her fan, and as Marston stooped to pick it up she shot one quick glance towards us. Her companion handed her the fan, and they resumed the promenade. But they took no more than half a turn before the Countess signalled to the porters, and getting into the chair, was carried off. Marston waited until she was out of sight, with his hat in his hand, and then c.o.c.king it jauntily on his head, marched off in the opposite direction. The satisfaction of his manner made my blood boil with rage.
"The conceited a.s.s!" I cried, stamping my feet.
"She heard the window open after all," said Elmscott.
As for Culverton, he t.i.ttered the more.
"The oddest thing!" he repeated. "The very oddest thing! Strike me purple if I know what to make of the delightful creature!"
""Tis as plain as my hand," replied Elmscott roughly. "No sooner did she perceive that you were watching her than she gave Marston his conge. He had done his work, and she had no further use for him. She is a woman--there"s the top and bottom of it. A couple of men to frown at each other and grimace prettily to her! Her vanity demands no less.
She is like one of our Indian planters who value their wealth by the number of their slaves; so she her beauty."
"Nay," interposed the fop. "If that were the whole business, one would hear less concerning Mr. Buckler from her rapturous lips. But rat me if she ever talks about any one else."
"Do you mean that?" I asked eagerly.
"Oh, most inquisitive, on my honour! In truth, your name is growing plaguy wearisome to me. Why, but the other night, when she selected me to lead her to her carriage at the theatre, "twas but to question me concerning you, and whether you gambled, and the horse of mine you rode, and what not. And there was I with a thousand tender nothings to whisper in her ear, and pink me if I could get one of "em out!"
"Then I give the riddle up," rejoined Elmscott, though I would fain have heard more of this strain from Culverton. "I make neither head nor tail of the business, unless, Morrice, she would bring you on by a little wholesome jealousy." He looked at me shrewdly, and continued: "You are a timid wooer, I fancy. Why not go to her boldly? Tell her you are going away, and have had enough of her tricks! "Twould bring your suit to a climax."
"One way or another," said I doubtfully.