Marjory coloured--more from self-reproach than embarra.s.sment. She had gone in these last weeks terribly near to forgetting poor Evan"s existence.
"Evan came in while I was at the Seminghams". He looked so dull, poor fellow. I--I asked him to dinner, Marjory. He hasn"t been here for a long while. We haven"t seen nearly as much of him since we knew Mr.
Ruston. I don"t think they like one another."
"You know why he hasn"t come here," said Marjory softly.
"He spent a week with me while you were at Dieppe. He seemed to like to hear about you."
A smile of sad patience appeared on Marjory"s face.
"Oh, my dear, you are such a bad hinter," she half laughed, half moaned.
"Poor Evan! I"m very sorry for him; but I can"t help it, can I?"
"It would have been so nice."
"And you used to be such a mercenary creature!"
"Ah, well, my dear, I want to keep one of my children with me. But, if it can"t be, it can"t."
Marjory bent down and whispered in her mother"s ear, "I"m not going to Omof.a.ga, dear."
"Well, I used to be half afraid of it," admitted Lady Valentine (she forgot that she had half hoped it also); "but you never seem to be interested in him now. Do you mind Evan coming to dinner?"
"Oh, no," said Marjory.
Since her return from Dieppe she had seemed to "mind" nothing.
Relaxation of the strain under which her days pa.s.sed there had left her numbed. She was conscious only of a pa.s.sionate shrinking from the sight or company of the two people who had there filled her life. To meet them again forced her back in thought to that dreary mysterious night with its unsolved riddle, that she feared seeking to answer.
Her mother had called on Maggie Dennison, and came back with a flow of kindly lamentations over Maggie"s white cheeks and listless weary air.
Her brother was constantly with Ruston, and tried to persuade her to join parties of which he was to be one. She fenced with both of them, escaping on one plea and another; and Maggie"s acquiescence in her absence, no less than Ruston"s failure to make a chance of meeting her, strengthened her resolve to remain aloof.
Young Sir Walter also came to dinner that night; he was very gay and chatty, full of Omof.a.ga and his fast-approaching expedition. He greeted Evan Haselden with a manner that claimed at least equality; nay, he lectured him a little on the ignorant interference of a stay-at-home House of Commons with the work of the men on the spot, in South Africa and elsewhere; people on this side would not give a man a free hand, he complained, and exhorted Evan to take no part in such ill-advised meddling.
Hence he was led on to the topic he was never now far away from--Willie Ruston--and he reproached his mother and sister for their want of attention to the hero.
This was the first gleam of light for poor Evan Haselden, for it told him that Willie Ruston was not, as he had feared, a successful rival. He rejoiced at Lady Valentine"s hinted dislike of Ruston, and anxiously studied Marjory"s face in hope of detecting a like disposition. But his vanity led him to return Walter"s lecture, and he added an innuendo concerning the unscrupulousness of adventurers who cloaked money-making under specious pretences. Walter flared up in a moment, and the dinner ended in something like a dispute between the two young men.
"Well, Dennison"s found him out, anyhow," said Evan bitterly. "He"s cut the whole concern."
"We can do without Dennison," said young Sir Walter scornfully.
When the meal was finished, young Sir Walter, treating his friend without ceremony, carelessly pleaded an engagement, and went out. Lady Valentine, interpreting Evan"s glances, and hoping against hope, seized the chance of leaving him alone with her daughter. Marjory watched the manoeuvre without thwarting it. Her heart was more dead to Evan than it had ever been. Her experiences at Dieppe had aged her mind, and she found him less capable of stirring any feeling in her than even in the days when she had half made a hero out of Willie Ruston.
She waited for his words in resignation; and he, acute enough to mark her moods, began as a man begins who rushes on antic.i.p.ated defeat. What is unintelligible seems most irresistible, and he knew not at what point to attack her indifference. He saw the change in her; he could have dated its beginning. The cause he found somehow in Ruston, but yet it was clear to him that she did not think of Ruston as a suitor--almost clear that she heard his name and thought of him with repulsion--and that the attraction he had once exercised over her was gone.
The weary talk wore to its close, ending with angry petulance on his side, and, at last, on hers with a grief that was half anger. He could not believe in her decision, unless there were one who had displaced him; and, seeing none save Ruston, in spite of his own convictions, he broke at last into a demand to be told whether she thought of him.
Marjory started in horror, crying, "No, no," and, for all Evan"s preoccupation, her vehemence amazed him.
"Oh, you"ve found him out too, perhaps," he sneered. "You"ve found him out by now. All the same, it was his fault that you didn"t care for me before."
"Evan," she implored, "do, pray, not talk like that. There"s not a man in the whole world that I would not have for my husband rather than him."
"Now," he repeated; "but I"m speaking of before."
Half angry again at that he should allow himself such an insinuation, she yet liked him too well, and felt too unhappy to be insincere.
"Well," she said with a troubled smile, "if you like, I"ve found him out."
"Then, Marjory," cried Evan, in a spasm of reviving hope, "if that fellow"s out of the way----"
But she would not hear him, and he flung himself out of the house with a rudeness that his love pardoned.
She heard him go, in aching sorrow that he, who felt few things deeply, should feel this one so deeply. Then, following the calls of society, which are followed in spite of most troubles, she, pale-faced and sad, and her mother, almost weeping in motherly distress, dressed themselves to go to a party. Lady Semingham was at home that night.
At the party all was gay and bright. Lady Semingham was chattering to Mr. Otto Heather. Semingham was trying to make Mr. Foster Belford understand the story of the Baron and Willie Ruston, Lord Detchmore, who had come in from a public dinner, was conspicuous in his blue riband, and was listening to Adela Ferrars with a smile on his face. Marjory sat down in a corner, hoping to escape introductions, and, when an old friend carried her mother off to eat an ice, she kept her place.
Presently she heard cried, "Mrs. Dennison," and Maggie came in with her usual grace. It seemed as though the last few months were blotted out, and they were all again at that first party at Mrs. Dennison"s where Willie Ruston had made his _entree_. The illusion was not to lack confirmation, for, a moment later, Ruston himself was announced, and the sound of his name made Adela turn her head for one swift moment from her distinguished companion.
"Ah!" said Lord Detchmore, "then I must go. If I talk to him any more I"m a lost man."
"There"s Mr. Loring in the corner--no, not that corner; that"s Marjory Valentine. He will take your side."
"Why are they all in corners?" asked Detchmore.
"They don"t want to be trodden on," said Adela, with a grimace. "You"d better take one too."
"There"s Mrs. Dennison in a third corner. Shall I take that one, or should I get trodden on there?"
Adela looked up swiftly. His remark hinted at gossip afloat.
"Take one for yourself," she began, with an uneasy laugh. But the laugh suddenly became genuine for the very absurdity of the thing. "We"ll go and join Mr. Loring, shall we?" she proposed.
Lord Detchmore acquiesced, and they walked over to where Tom stood. On their way, to their consternation, they encountered Willie Ruston.
"Now we"re in for it," breathed Detchmore in low tones. But Ruston, with a bow, pa.s.sed on, going straight as an arrow towards where Maggie Dennison sat. Lord Detchmore raised his eyebrows, Adela shut her fan with a click, Tom Loring, when they reached him, was frowning. Away across the room sat Marjory alone.
"Good heavens! he let me alone!" exclaimed Lord Detchmore.
"Perhaps I was your shield," said Adela. "He doesn"t like me."
"Nor you, Loring, I expect?"
Presently Lord Detchmore moved away, leaving Adela and Tom together.
They had been together a good deal lately, and their tones showed the intimacy of friendship.
"That man," said Adela quickly, "suspects something. He"s a terrible old gossip, although he is a great statesman, of course. Can"t you prevent them talking there together?"
"No," said Tom composedly, "I can"t; she"d send me away if I went."