The morning had been devoted to the preparation of Nance"s trousseau--a matter which, in these days, claimed absorbed attention; and, later, the sisters had lunched together at one of the restaurants.
The day--or at least the earlier portion of it--had been a complete success. But now, as Clodagh"s motor car sped along under the canopy of trees, already whitened with summer dust, a cloud seemed to have fallen upon the sisters" gaiety. Clodagh lay back in her corner, looking straight in front of her; Nance sat stiffly upright, her face flushed, her head held at an aggressive angle.
At last, unable to maintain the silence longer, she turned and looked at her sister.
"It--it seems to me so stupid!" she said.
Clodagh took up a parasol that lay beside her, and opened it with a little jerk.
"Was it my fault that he lunched at "Prince"s"? Was it my fault that he sat at the table next to ours? You know perfectly well that I don"t care where he lunches--or whether he ever lunches----"
Nance maintained her rigid att.i.tude.
"I wonder if he is of that opinion," she said dryly.
Clodagh flushed suddenly.
"It is you who are being stupid! Lord Deerehurst is one of my best friends. It"s impossible to treat him rudely when we chance to meet."
Nance gave a little angry laugh.
"When you chance to meet!" she repeated with immense scorn. Then she turned afresh and looked at her sister. "Do you think engaged people ought to have best friends? I wonder what Pierce would say if I were to get flowers and books and things every day----"
Clodagh shut her parasol sharply.
"How can you, Nance! Books and flowers and things everyday! Four times Lord Deerehurst has sent me flowers since we came back to town."
"And how many times has he written to you? And how many times has he called? And why did he come back to town from Tuffnell, instead of going to France with Mr. Serracauld?"
Clodagh looked away across the park.
"He had business in town."
"Business! Was it business that brought him to the flat at nine o"clock the second day after we arrived--and that made you ride with him? Oh, Clo, I wonder, when you think of Walter, that you"re--you"re not ashamed!" She brought the last word forth with a little gasp.
For a moment Clodagh"s face was suffused with red.
"I do not need anybody to tell me how I should care for Walter," she said, after a moment"s pause.
At the low, hurt tone, Nance"s antagonistic att.i.tude suddenly deserted her. The expression of her face changed, her figure unbent.
"Clo! Clo! I was a wretch!--I was a wretch! Forgive me! It"s only that, knowing Walter is coming back to-morrow, knowing that he hates Lord Deerehurst, and seeing you allow him to go everywhere that you go---- Oh, Clo, I can"t properly explain, but sometimes I have felt--afraid.
Walter is so--so honourable himself."
Clodagh put out her hand and laid it for a moment upon her sister"s.
"When one loves like I do, Nance," she said, "one simply doesn"t _see_ anybody but the person that one cares for. Other people don"t count--other people don"t exist!"
Nance looked down at the hand still resting upon her own.
"Perhaps not," she said wisely, "but the point is that the person one cares for may not be quite so blind."
Clodagh withdrew her hand.
"You mean that Walter might imagine--you mean that Walter might be _jealous_ of Lord Deerehurst?"
"I do mean that."
With a sudden gesture of amus.e.m.e.nt, Clodagh threw up her head and laughed. Then almost as suddenly her face became grave.
"Nance!" she said in a new voice.
Very sharply Nance turned.
"Yes?"
But Clodagh"s mood had veered once more.
"Nothing, darling!" she said--"nothing! Here we are at home! Aren"t you longing for a nice, cool room and a cup of tea?"
CHAPTER XIV
The fragmentary quarrel between the sisters was very suggestive.
Nance"s anger, and Clodagh"s irritable repudiation of her advice, had each been fraught with its own significance. For, much as the former might busy herself in the happiness of her own engagement and the preparations for her marriage, she could not blind herself to the fact that Clodagh was acting, if not with genuine folly, at least with something that might readily be mistaken for it; and much as the latter might resent a criticism of her action, she could not mentally deny that possibly the criticism was justified.
Yet, when the matter came to be sifted, it was hard to say exactly the point to which exception could reasonably be taken.
Undoubtedly Deerehurst did obtrude himself with curious--with almost intimate--frequency into the plans of each day; but then the intrusion was so natural--so simple--so subtle, if one might use so extreme a word. If London is large in one sense, it is socially as small as any other capital; and the man who wishes to seek the society of a member of his own set finds his way rendered very easy.
And in all matters of tact and subtlety Deerehurst was an adept. If, in Nance"s eyes, his comings and goings were things to cavil at, he knew exactly how to arrange them for Clodagh"s consideration, so that the gift of a bunch of flowers--the offer of seats at a theatre--the loan of a horse--or the retailing of an amusing bit of gossip seemed the merest courtesies from one friend to another. For in one fact lay his advantage--the fact of a really great favour, secretly given and secretly accepted, in comparison with which all trivial civilities became as nothing.
Not that he ever pressed this advantage home. He was far too wise to allude to it by look or word. But the very pa.s.sivity of his att.i.tude served to fix the consciousness of his generosity deeper in Clodagh"s mind. Not that the knowledge of it galled her; she was too exultantly happy in her own life to be hampered by any debt. But the knowledge of its existence was there--unconsciously bearing upon her ideas and her actions.
On the morning following her return from Tufnell, a faint thrill of surprise and uneasiness had touched her when her eyes had fallen upon a big square envelope, bearing a black coronet, that lay amongst her letters on the breakfast table. And another remembrance of Venice had caused her fingers to tremble slightly as she tore the letter open.
But at the first line her face had cleared--her confidence in life and in herself had flowed back in full tide. There was not a word in the letter that Gore himself might not have read.
So great had been her relief, that a new wave of kindly feeling for Deerehurst had awakened in her mind; and when, on the following morning, he had joined her in her early ride, she had received him with friendly warmth.
And from that, things had drifted, until Deerehurst"s presence--Deerehurst"s discreet, deferential, amusing personality--had become a factor in the day"s routine. The Estcoits had arrived from America, and, with their advent, she had been compelled to see less of Nance; the majority of her friends had already left town, so that even had she desired the old existence, amus.e.m.e.nts and occupations were less easy to find than they had been a month ago. There was, of course, her daily letter from Gore--the most precious thing in her existence--and there was also her daily letter to him. But even a woman in love cannot read and write--or even dream--all day; and in the intervals of idleness there invariably seemed to be--Deerehurst.
But now at last the day had arrived upon which Gore was to return to London. It was four o"clock in the afternoon; the hot summer air was beating upon the green-and-white sunblinds of the flat; and Nance was standing at a table in the window, arranging a bowl of heliotrope, when Clodagh opened the door of the drawing-room.
She was dressed in her riding habit; her riding crop was under one arm; and as she came forward into the room she was drawing off a pair of chamois gloves.