Now what should Wych Hazel do? During that minute, while she watched the two figures standing in the driving storm before Mrs.
Powder"s door, she had taken a comprehensive view of the situation, and made up her mind.
"Sit there, please," she said, motioning the incomer to his former place on the front seat. "I want to talk business." Since leaving Fort Washington she had hardly opened her lips; but now the well- remembered voice came out clear and sweet and with a ring of grave dignity.
"Am I to suppose you do not think me worthy to talk business alongside of you?" said Stuart lightly, and obeying.
Wych Hazel left that question to answer itself. She was silent a minute, her hands holding each other fast.
"Mr. Nightingale," she said, "you once asked me if I liked to hear the truth told about myself. Do you?"
"From you!?anything," he answered gallantly. "Your voice never speaks harsh judgments?though I am afraid the truth about myself would be less than flattering. What is it, Mrs. Rollo? I am curious. It is said, no man knows himself."
"I have been told," said Wych Hazel?and she hesitated, and then went on again with quick utterance,?how intensely disagreeable it all was to her!?"I have been told this afternoon, that a year ago you wanted my fortune. Stop!?I do not care two straws whether you did or not!?But I wished to say, that upon certain conditions you can have part of it now. Think before you refuse, Mr.
Nightingale. No one will ever offer you so much again?in exchange for so little."
A pause.
"I am at a loss," he began in a changed voice, "how any one can have induced you to believe"? And there he stopped. But Wych Hazel gave him no help. She sat looking out into the night, the gaslights flaring in from time to time upon her face. Had she grown fairer than ever?
"Everything is said about everybody," he said haughtily after a little. "I do not know why I should fare better than others. The _truth_ about anybody is never public report. It is a.s.sumed in the case of every woman who has a fortune, that the man who seeks her, wants it. The gentleman who has had the honour of Miss Kennedy"s choice has certainly not escaped the imputation, however he may deserve it no more than I."
"That is not business," she said in quiet tones. "If you please, we will discuss nothing else."
"I am not so happy as to know of any business between us," he said in the same haughty manner,?"great as the honour and pleasure would be."
"It will save time," said Wych Hazel, "to waste none in preliminaries. I want to buy up your present bad undertaking?and the price is for you to name."?And she looked out again into the white darkness, and wondered if this was to be her first night adventure wherein Mr. Rollo did not appear to take her home.
"Pardon me, I am very much at a loss to know what you mean.
Only, through the confusion, I seem to perceive that Mrs. Rollo has lost the kind opinion which Miss Kennedy used to have of me."
He heard a soft exclamation of impatience?extremely like "Miss Kennedy!"?Then came deliberate words again.
"Mrs. Charteris," she said, "has no money of her own. I offer you what you will to let her alone. To break with her utterly. Do you understand? I believe if you pledged me your word to that, you would keep it."
"Thank you!" he said in the same tone. "May I venture to ask, how you can possibly suppose that I have anything to "break" with any other woman, after you have broken with me?"
The words were beneath notice. Wych hazel went on as if she had not heard them.
"And if you will come to a decision soon,?now, while I am here,?I shall be very glad."
"Mrs. Rollo supposes that everything can be done with money!"
Stuart said scornfully. "It is a not unnatural delusion with those who have an unusual supply."
"No," said Wych Hazel in the same calm way; "I do not suppose that. I know better. But with nothing in the other scale, money and honour have their weight."
"Mrs. Rollo probably has for the moment forgotten that she is not still Miss Kennedy. She will forgive me the remark."
"I have not forgotten that either. If I had, I should not be here talking to Mr. Nightingale."
"Why not?" said he quickly.
"The fact is enough. I am dealing only with facts to-night. Business facts." And Wych Hazel leaned back and was silent; listening to the dull roll of the wheels, and the sharper swirl of snow and hail against the windows. A few minutes of silence allowed these to be heard. Then the carriage stopped.
"You know," said Wych Hazel suddenly, "there are two names at stake. What do you decide, Mr. Nightingale?"
The carriage door opened; he had no time to reply.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
SUPPER.
It was not exactly a cheery evening in Hazel"s deserted rooms.
Rollo had the entertainment of Prim and Mrs. Coles upon his hands, and was besides all the time busied in baffling her efforts to find out whether he was anxious, whether he knew where Wych Hazel had gone, whether he was aware of what kept her, and whether he did not think something ought to be done. This sort of exercise grows wearisome in time; and Rollo finally gave it up and fled. He put on coat and hat and repaired to the great entrance of the hotel, which seemed to him just then if not a point of rest, yet to be nearest to that point. Here he had a view of the storm, which he studied at leisure in the intervals of watching everything on wheels that went by. He knew who it was, when Hazel"s carriage drew up at last, and was by the side if it before it had fairly stopped.
He opened the door and took Hazel out, and led her into the house, without paying attention to anything but her. He took her up stairs to her own room, which he reached without going through the parlour where Mrs. Coles and Prim were. There he threw off his own snow-covered wrappings and then hers, that he might wrap her in his arms. He did not say what he had been feeling, but his manner of great gladness left Hazel to infer several things. And for a minute or two she was pa.s.sive, shewing a pale, tired face. But then there swept over her such a sense of what she had, and of what she had escaped, that she could only lay her head down on his shoulder and be still; a shiver running over her as she remembered other souls adrift.
"Have you dined, in the snow, anywhere?" were Rollo"s first coherent words. He was not given to talking sentiment. At the same time he was gathering Hazel"s cold hands into his.
"I could not help it, Olaf!" Hazel broke out. "I have been whirled about like a brown snow-flake."
"And come home frozen." He rang the bell for Phoebe, admonished her to be quick, and went back to the drawing room. When Hazel a few minutes later followed him, she found a servant bringing in supper. Primrose gave her a welcome kiss, but the other lady exclaimed,?eyes and senses on the alert,?
"Well, my dear! we have been uneasy about you."
"n.o.body ever need?about me," said Wych Hazel. "Unless there is something afoot more serious than a snow-storm."
"It"s a wild storm, isn"t it?"
"Rather wild. You know, wild things are in my line, Mrs. Coles."
"Not _now_, my dear, I hope. You have not come far in the snow, surely?"
"A little way seems far in such a drive, don"t you know it, Prudentia?" remarked Rollo. And he took Wych Hazel out of the chair where she had placed herself and transferred her to a softer one.
"But Dane," Mrs. Coles continued, with her own very peculiar mixture of raillery and insinuation,?"aren"t you curious? or do you know all already?"
"I know all I want to know at present, thank you."
"Does he always let you do just what you like, Hazel?"
"What I like?" Hazel repeated dreamily, lifting her eyes to the person in question: a swift, secret glance of allegiance which to- night came to him very often. Then she laughed and coloured a little. "I hardly know," she said. "My "like" and his "let" are mixed up in inextricable confusion."
"My dear!" said Mrs. Coles in mock reprehension, but smiling.
"What an admission!"
And I think an inner voice of wisdom admonished her to let the matter rest and say no more; but Mrs. Coles was in a sort of malign fascination at the picture before her. Hazel was in her easy chair; Dane had brought up a little low stand before her, and sitting between her and the supper table he was taking care of both; but the care bestowed at his left hand was something the like of which was strange to see. The late Mr. Coles had never introduced his wife to anything of the kind; indeed he had been one of the men who rather expect that their wives shall wait upon them. It was not Dane was neglecting other people, or that he was making any parade whatever; on the contrary, he was fully attentive to every want of everybody, and of Hazel he was only taking care; yet it was a sort of care and given in a manner that put miles and miles between her and all other women. I suppose Mrs. Coles felt herself somehow out in the cold, for it was certainly with a little spice of irritation that she opened her lips the next time she spoke.