"You"ll be a reigning wit yet, if you don"t look out," says Mrs.
Chichester.
"As you are a reigning toast," responds he, quite fired by the late ovation.
"Oh, goodness!" says Mrs. Chichester, shrugging up her thin shoulders and casting a queer glance round her from under her brows; "let us take him away quickly, before he cuts himself with his own smartness."
"Yes. Come down to the library, it"s warmer there," says t.i.ta. She leads the way to the door, and when at it looks back over her shoulder at her husband. "Are you coming, Maurice?"
"In a moment or two. I have a few letters to write first."
"And you?" says t.i.ta, looking at Mrs. Bethune.
"I, too, have some letters to write," returns Marian.
Her tone is quite ordinary, but to the young girl gazing at her there seems something defiant in her eyes and her smile. What is it in the smile--a sort of hateful amus.e.m.e.nt.
t.i.ta leaves the room. She goes out and down the spiral stairs quite collectedly, to all appearance, yet she is not aware for a moment that Margaret"s hand is on her arm. For the first time--the first time in all her young and most innocent life--a sin has touched her soul. She has learned to hate--she as yet does not know why--but she knows she hates Marian Bethune.
As the door closes behind her and her guests, Rylton turns on Marian.
"Why did you say that? Why didn"t you go?" says he.
His face is white as death. He cannot account to himself for the agitation that is consuming him.
"Why should I not say what is the truth?" returns she, her beautiful daring eyes full on his. "Why should I go? Does Lady Rylton demand that all her guests should be at her beck and call, morning, noon, and night?"
"She demands nothing," says Rylton.
The terrible truth of what he is saying goes home to him. What has she ever demanded, that poor child, who has given him her fortune, her life? Her little, sweet, half-pathetic face as she looked back at him from the doorway is before him. Her face is often before him now.
"She must be a fool, then," says Marian insolently. She takes a step nearer to him. "Don"t let us talk of her. What is she to us?" cries she, in a low fierce tone that speaks of words held back for many days, words that have been scorching her, and must find sound at last. "Maurice! Maurice! how long is this to go on!" She takes a step nearer to him, and then, as if it is impossible to her to hold back any longer, she flings herself suddenly into his arms.
"Maurice, speak to me. My love! My life!" Her words are low, dispirited, broken by little sobs.
Rylton presses her to him. It is an involuntary movement, the action of one who would succour another when in trouble. His face has lost all colour. He is indeed as white as death. He holds her. His arms are round her--round this woman he has loved so long; it is--it must be a supreme moment--and yet--
He lays his hands upon her arms, and putting her gently back from him gazes into her drenched eyes. Those eyes so dear, so l.u.s.trous.
How often has he looked into them, when,
"Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again!"
"Marian," says he. His tone is tenderness itself, yet there is now a sudden strength in it that astonishes him. _She_ had had all the strength in those old days. She had dominated him, subduing him by her beauty, her charm. The charm is there still--he knows that as he gazes into her deep eyes, but is it quite as potent? A year ago would she have been standing before him, looking at him as she is looking now with this ineffable pa.s.sion in her gaze whilst _he_ stood too? No. He would have been at her feet, her slave, her lover, to do with as she would. "Marian, is this wise?"
"Ah! one moment!" entreats she sadly. "It is so seldom I can see you alone, and this blessed chance--will you refuse it? You saw how I dared everything. How I even risked her suspicion. It was because I felt I _should_ see--_should_ speak with you again."
"You should consider yourself," says he in a dull tone.
He hardly understands himself. Where is the old, wild longing to be with her, when others are away, to hold her in his arms? To kiss her lips--dear willing lips?
"What do I care about myself?" returns she vehemently. Her pa.s.sion has so carried her with it, that she has failed to see the new wonder in his air, the chill, the lack of warmth, the secret questioning. "Ah, Maurice, forgive me! It is so like you to think of me before yourself. And I know one _must_ think. But will it be always so? Is there no chance, no hope--of freedom for you and me?
You are rich now, and if--if----"
"Don"t," says he, in a choked tone.
He almost pushes her from him, but she clings to him.
"I know--I know," says she. "It is a dishonourable thought, but thoughts will come. And you----" She catches him by both arms, and swaying her little body a little, compels his gaze to meet hers.
"They come to you, too," cries she in a low tone, soft as velvet, but quick with fervour. "You, too, long for freedom. Do I not know you, Maurice? Do I not believe in you? You are mine--mine! Oh how I honour you, for your honour to _her!_ I think you are the one good man I ever met. If I loved you before your marriage, I love you a thousand times better since. You are mine, and I am yours. And we must wait--wait--but not for long. That girl----"
He releases himself from her by a quick, almost infuriated gesture.
At the very instant of his doing so the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor without can be heard. Mrs. Bethune steps quickly to a side-door, and pa.s.ses noiselessly into a pa.s.sage that leads her to a back staircase. As she runs along it softly, noiselessly, a great swell of delight lifts her bosom.
He loves her. He loves her still. He had not repulsed her when she had flung herself into his embrace, and this last moment when he had flung her out of it, _that_ spoke more than all. He had heard those coming footsteps. He had thought of her--her reputation. That was dear to him. She gains her own room by a circuitous round, breathless, unseen, secure in her belief of her power over him. The insatiable vanity of the woman had prevented her from reading between the lines.
Rylton, detesting himself for the necessity for deception, has just seated himself at a writing-table, when Minnie Hescott enters the room. That astute young woman refrains from a glance round the room.
"Still writing?" says she.
She had told herself when she escaped from the others that she would do a good turn to t.i.ta. She decided upon not caring what Rylton would think of her. Men were more easily appeased than women. She would square him later on, even if her plain speaking offended him now; and, at all events, t.i.ta would be on her side--would acknowledge she had meant kindly towards her, and even if all failed still something would be gained. She would have "been even" with Mrs. Bethune.
Miss Hescott"s vocabulary is filled with choice sayings, expressive if scarcely elegant. Beyond her dislike to Mrs. Bethune, personally--she might have conquered that--Minnie is clever--there is always the fact that Mrs. Bethune is poor, and poor people, as Minnie has learned through a hard philosophy, are never of any use at all. Mrs. Bethune, therefore, could never advance her one inch on the road to social success; whereas t.i.ta, though she is a mere n.o.body in herself, and not of half as good birth as Mrs. Bethune, can be of the utmost use as a propeller.
t.i.ta, by happy circ.u.mstances, is the wife of a real live Baronet, and t.i.ta is her cousin. t.i.ta has money, and is very likely to go to town every year in the season, and what more likely than that t.i.ta should take her (Minnie) under her wing next season, present her and marry her? Delightful prospect. Her step is quite buoyant as she approaches Rylton and says:
"Still writing?"
"Yes," returns Rylton leisurely, to whom Minnie is not dear.
"I"m sorry. I wanted to say something to you," says Minnie, who has decided on adopting the unadorned style of conversation, that belongs as a rule to the young--the unsophisticated.
"If I can be of the slightest use to you," says Rylton, wheeling round on his chair, "I shall be delighted." He had knocked off the blotting paper as he turned, and now stoops to pick it up, a moment that Minnie takes to see that he has no letter half begun before him, and no letter finished either, as the rack on the side of the wall testifies. Minnie would have done well as a female detective!
"Oh no--no. On the contrary, I wanted to be of use to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. You mustn"t be angry with me," says Minnie, still with the air of the _ingenue_ full about her; "but I felt ever since the night before last that I _should_ speak to you."
"The night before last!"
Rylton"s astonishment is so immense that he can do nothing but repeat her words. And now it must be told that Minnie, who had seen that vindictive look on Mrs. Bethune"s face as she went down the terrace steps on the night of Lady Warbeck"s dance, and had augured ill from it for t.i.ta and her brother, had cross-examined Tom very cleverly, and had elicited from him the fact that he had heard footsteps behind the arbour where he and somebody--he refused to give the name--had sat that night, and that he--Tom--had glanced round, and had seen and known, but that he had said nothing of it to his companion. A mutual hatred for Mrs. Bethune, born in the breast of Tom as well as in his sister, had alone compelled Tom to declare even this much. Minnie had probed and probed about his companion, as to who she was, but Tom would not speak. Yet he might as well have spoken. Minnie knew!
"Yes, that night at Lady Warbeck"s. I know you will think me horrid to say what I am going to say, and really there is nothing--only--I am so fond of t.i.ta."
"It is not horrid of you to say that," says Rylton, smiling.
"No. I know that. But that isn"t all. I--am afraid t.i.ta has an enemy in this house."
"Impossible," says Rylton.