"I don"t think so. He practically turned him out of the house, you know."
"Not really?"
"I know it for a positive fact. My sister has just got a new butler, who left Lord Radclyffe"s service the very day Philip de Mountford first walked into the house."
"Old Parker, I remember him."
"He says Lord Radclyffe turned all the family out, bag and baggage.
They were so insolent to Philip."
"Then it"s quite true?"
"That this Philip is the late Arthur de Mountford"s son?"
"Quite true, I believe. Lord Radclyffe openly acknowledges it. He is satisfied apparently."
"So are the lawyers, I understand."
"Oh! how do you do, Miss Harris? So glad to see you looking so well."
This, very pointedly, as Louisa, perfectly gowned, smiling serenely, ascended the broad staircase.
"I have not been ill, Lady Keogh."
"Oh, no! of course not. And how is Mr. de Mountford?"
"You can ask him yourself."
And Louisa pa.s.sed on to make way for Luke. And the same remarks and the same question were repeated _ad infinitum_, until a popular waltz played by the Hungarian gentlemen from Germany drew the fashionable crowd round the musicians" platform.
Then Luke and Louisa contrived to make good their escape, and to reach the half-landing above the heads of numerous young couples that adorned the stairs. The hum of voices, the noise of shrill laughter, and swish of skirts and fans masked their own whisperings. The couples on the stairs were absorbed in their own little affairs; they were sitting out here so that they might pursue their own flirtations.
Luke and Louisa could talk undisturbed.
They spoke of the flat in Exhibition Road and of the furniture that Louisa had helped Edie to select.
"There are only a few odds and ends to get now," Louisa was saying, "coal scuttles and waste-paper baskets; that sort of thing. I hope you don"t think that we have been extravagant. Edie, I am afraid, had rather luxurious notions----"
"Poor Edie!"
"Oh! I don"t think she minds very much. Life at Grosvenor Square in the past month has not been over cheerful."
Then as Luke made no comment she continued in her own straightforward, matter-of-fact way--the commonplace woman facing the ordinary duties of life:
"Now that the flat is all in order, you can all move in whenever you like--and then, Luke, you must begin to think of yourself."
"Of you, Lou," he said simply.
"Oh! there"s nothing," she said, "to think about me."
"There you are wrong, Lou, and you must not talk like that. Our engagement must be officially broken off. Colonel Harris has been too patient as it is."
"Father," she rejoined, "does not wish the engagement broken off."
"All these people," he said, nodding in the direction of the crowd below, "will expect some sort of announcement."
"Let them."
"Lou, you must take back your word."
"How does one take back one"s word, Luke? Have you ever done it? I shouldn"t know how to."
She looked at him straight, her eyes brilliant in the glare of the electric lamps, not a tear in them or in his, her face immovable, lest indifferent eyes happened to be turned up to where these two interesting people sat. Only a quiver round the lips, a sign that pa.s.sion palpitated deep down within her heart, below the Bond Street gown and the diamond collar, the soul within the puppet.
She held his glance, forcing him into mute acknowledgment that his philosophy, his worldliness, was only veneer, and that he had not really envisaged the hard possibility of actually losing her.
Oh, these men of this awful conventional world! How cruel they can be in that proud desire to do what is right!--what their code tells them is right!--no law of G.o.d or nature that!--only convention, the dictates of other men! Hard on themselves, selfless in abnegation, but not understanding that the dearest gift they can bestow on a woman is the right for her to efface herself, the right for her to be the giver of love, of consolation, of sacrifice.
Commonplace, plain, sensible Louisa understood everything that Luke felt; those great luminous eyes of hers, tearless yet brilliant, read every line on that face drilled into impa.s.siveness.
No one else could have guessed the precise moment at which softness crept into the hard determination of jaw and lips; no ear but hers could ever have perceived the subtle change in the quivering breath, from hard obstinacy that drew the nostrils together, and set every line of the face, to that in-drawing of the heavy air around caused by pa.s.sionate longing which hammered at the super-excited brain, and made the sinews crack in the mighty physical effort at self-repression.
But to all outward appearance perfect calm, correct demeanour, the att.i.tude and tone of voice prescribed by the usages of this so-called society.
"Lou," he said, "it is not fair to tempt me. I should be a miserable cur if I held you to your word. I am a penniless beggar--a wastrel now, without a profession, without prospects, soon to be without friends."
He seemed to take pleasure in recalling his defects, and she let him ramble on; women who are neither psychological puzzles nor interesting personalities have a way of listening patiently whilst a tortured soul eases its burden by contemplating its own martyrdom.
"I am a penniless beggar," he reiterated. "I have no right to ask any woman to share my future dull and humdrum existence. A few thousands is all I have. I think that Edie will marry soon and then I can go abroad--I must go abroad--I must do something----"
"We"ll do it together, Luke."
"I feel," he continued, rebellious now and wrathful, all the primary instincts alive in him of self-preservation and the desire to destroy an enemy, "I feel that if I stayed in England I should contrive to be even with that blackguard. His rights? By G.o.d! I would never question those. The moment I knew that he was Uncle Arthur"s son I should have been ready to shake him by the hand, to respect him, to stand aside as was his due. But his att.i.tude!--the influence he exercises over Uncle Rad!--his rancour against us all! Jim and Edie! what had they done to be all turned out of the house like a pack of poor relations--and poor Uncle Rad----"
He checked himself, for she had put a hand on his coat sleeve.
"Luke, it is no use," she said.
"You are right, Lou! and I am a miserable wretch. If you only knew how I hate that man----"
"Don"t," she said, "let us think of him."
"How can I help it? He robs me of you."
"No," she rejoined, "not that."
Her hand still rested on his arm, and he took it between both his. The couples in front of them all down the length of stairs paid no heed to them, and through the hum of voices, from a distant room beyond, came softly wafted on the hot, still air the strains of the exquisite barcarolle from the "Contes d" Hoffmann."
Louisa smiled confidently, proudly. He held her hand and she felt that his--hot and dry--quivered in every muscle at her touch. The commonplace woman had opened the magic book of Love. She had turned its first pages, the opening chapters had been simple, unruffled, uncrumpled by the hand of men or of Fate. But now at last she read the chapter which all along she knew was bound to reach her ken. The leaves of the book were crumpled; Fate with cruel hand had tried to blur the writing; the psychological problem of to-day--the one that goes by the name of "modern woman"--would no doubt ponder ere she tried to read further; she would a.n.a.lyze her feelings, her thoughts, her sensations; she would revel over her own heartache and delight in her own soul agony. But simple-minded, conventional Louisa did none of these things. She neither ruffled her hair, nor dressed in ill-made serge clothes; her dress was perfect and her hand exquisitely gloved.