"He is as real and as near the truth," Nigel replied solemnly, "as the things of which he has told us."
CHAPTER x.x.xI
That night, Nigel gave a dinner party on Maggie"s account at the fashionable London hotel of the moment. Invitations had been sent out by telephone, by hurried notes, in one or two cases were delivered by word of mouth. On the whole, the acceptances, considering the season was in full swing, were a little remarkable. Every one was anxious to come, because, as one of her girl friends put it, no one ever knew what Maggie was going to be up to next. One of the few refusals came from Prince Shan, and even he made use of compromise:
_My dear Lord Dorminster, will you forgive me if in this instance I do not break a custom to which I have perhaps a little too rigidly adhered. The Prime Minister telephoned, a few minutes after we left him, asking me to meet two of his colleagues from the Foreign Office to-night, and I doubt whether our conference will have concluded at the hour you name._
_However, if you will permit me, I will give myself the pleasure of joining you later in the evening, to make my adieux to those of my friends whom I am quite sure I shall find amongst your company._
_Sincerely yours_,
SHAN.
Maggie pa.s.sed the note back with a little smile. She made no comment whatever. Nigel watched her thoughtfully.
"I have carried out your orders," he observed. "Everything has been attended to, even to the colour of your table decorations. Now tell me what it all means?"
She looked him in the face quite frankly.
"How can I?" she answered. "I do not know myself."
"Is this by way of being a farewell party?" he persisted.
"I do not know that," she a.s.sured him. "The only thing is that if I do decide--to go--well, I shall have had a last glimpse of most of my friends."
"As your nearest male relative, in fact your guardian," Nigel went on, with a touch of his old manner, "I feel myself deeply interested in your present situation. If a little advice from one who is considerably your senior would be acceptable--"
"It wouldn"t," Maggie interrupted quietly. "There are just two things in life no girl accepts advice upon--the way she does her hair and the man she means to marry. You see, both are decided by instinct. I shall know before dawn to-morrow what I mean to do, but until then nothing that anybody could say would make any difference. Besides, your mind ought to be full of your own matrimonial affairs. I hear that Naida is talking of going back to Russia next week."
"My own affairs are less complex," Nigel replied. "I am going to ask Naida to marry me--to-night if I have the opportunity."
Maggie made a little grimace.
"There goes my second string!" she exclaimed. "Nigel, you are horribly callous. I have never been in the least sure that I haven"t wanted to marry you myself."
Nigel lit a cigarette and pushed the box across to his companion.
"I"ve frequently felt the same way," he confessed. "The trouble of it is that when the really right person comes along, one hasn"t any doubt about it whatever. I should have made you a stodgy husband, Maggie."
She sniffed.
"I think that considering the way you"ve flirted with me," she declared, "you ought at least to have given me the opportunity of refusing you."
"If Naida refuses me," he began--
"And I decide that Asia is too far away," she interrupted--
"We may come together, after all," he said, with a resigned little sigh.
"Glib tongue and empty heart," she quoted. "Nigel, I would never trust you. I believe you"re in love with Naida."
"And I"m not quite so sure about you," he observed, watching the colour rise quickly in her cheeks. "Off with you to dress, young woman. It"s past seven, and we must be there early. I still have the wine to order."
The dinner party was in its way a complete success. Prince Karschoff was there, benign and distinguished; Chalmers and one or two other young men from the American Emba.s.sy. There was a sprinkling of Maggie"s girl friends, a leaven of the older world in Nigel"s few intimates,--and Naida, very pale but more beautiful than ever in a white velvet gown, her hair brushed straight back, and with no jewellery save one long rope of pearls. Nigel who in his capacity as host had found little time for personal conversation during the service of dinner, deliberately led her a little apart when they pa.s.sed out into the lounge for coffee and to watch the dancing.
"My duties are over for a time," he said. "Do you realise that I have not had a word with you alone since our luncheon at Ciro"s?"
"We have all been a little engrossed, have we not?" she murmured. "I hope that you are satisfied with the way things have turned out."
"Nothing shall induce me to talk politics or empire-saving to-night," he declared, with a smile. "I have other things to say."
"Tell me why you asked us all to dine so suddenly," she enquired. "I do not know whether it is my fancy, but there seems to be an air of celebration about. Is there any announcement to be made?"
He shook his head.
"None. The party was just a whim of Maggie"s."
They both looked across towards the ballroom, where she was dancing with Chalmers.
"Maggie is very beautiful to-night," Naida said. "I could scarcely listen to my neighbour"s conversation at dinner time for looking at her.
Yet she has the air all the time of living in a dream, as though something had happened which had lifted her right away from us all. I began to wonder," she added, "whether, after all, Oscar Immelan had not told me the truth, and whether we should not be drinking her health and yours before the evening was over."
"You could scarcely believe that," he whispered, "if you have any memory at all."
There was a faint touch of pink in her cheeks, a tinge of colour as delicate as the pa.s.sing of a gleam of sunshine over a sea-glistening sh.e.l.l.
"But Englishmen are so unfaithful," she sighed.
"Then I at least am an exception," Nigel answered swiftly. "The words which you checked upon my lips the last time we were alone together still live in my heart. I think, Naida, the time has come to say them."
Their immediate neighbours had deserted them. He leaned a little towards her.
"You know so well that I love you, Naida," he said. "Will you be my wife?"
She looked up at him, half laughing, yet with tears in her eyes. With an impulsive little gesture, she caught his hand in hers for a moment.
"How horribly sure you must have felt of me," she complained, "to have spoken here, with all these people around! Supposing I had told you that my life"s work lay amongst my own people, or that I had made up my mind to marry Oscar Immelan, to console him for his great disappointment."
"I shouldn"t have believed you," he answered, smiling.
"Conceit!" she exclaimed.
He shook his head.
"In a sense, of course, I am conceited," he replied. "I am the happiest and proudest man here. I really think that after all we ought to turn it into a celebration."