"I"m certain," said Lady St. Craye brightly, "that what you"ve just been saying"s most awfully interesting, but I like to hear things said ever so many times. Then the seventh time you understand everything, and the coldness and the hotness turn into silver and gold and everything is quite beautiful, and I think I am not saying exactly what you expected.--Don"t think I don"t know that what I say sounds like nonsense. I know that quite well, only I can"t stop talking. You know one is like that sometimes. It was like that the night you hit me."
"I? _Hit you_?"
He was kneeling by her low chair holding her hand, as she lay back talking quickly in low, even tones, her golden eyes shining wonderfully.
"No--you didn"t call it hitting. But things aren"t always what we call them, are they? You mustn"t kiss me now, Eustace. I think I"ve got some horrid fever--I"m sure I have. Because of course n.o.body could be bewitched nowadays, and put into a body that feels thick and thin in the wrong places. And my head _isn"t_ too big to get through the door.--Of course I know it isn"t. It would be funny if it were. I do love funny things.--So do you. I like to hear you laugh. I wish I could say something funny, so as to hear you laugh now."
She was holding his hand very tightly with one of hers. The other held the white roses. All her mind braced itself to a great exertion as the muscles do for a needed effort. She spoke very slowly.
"Listen, Eustace. I am going to be ill. Get a nurse and a doctor and go away. Perhaps it is catching. And if I fall through the floor," she added laughing, "it is so hard to stop!"
"Put your arms round my neck," he said, for she had risen and was swaying like a flame in the wind--the white rose leaves fell in showers.
"I don"t think I want to, now," she said, astonished that it should be so.
"Oh, yes, you do!"--He spoke as one speaks to a child. "Put your arms round Eustace"s neck,--your own Eustace that"s so fond of you."
"Are you?" she said, and her arms fell across his shoulders.
"Of course I am," he said. "Hold tight."
He lifted her and carried her, not quite steadily, for carrying a full-grown woman is not the bagatelle novelists would have us believe it.
He opened her bedroom door, laid her on the white, lacy coverlet of her bed.
"Now," he said, "you are to lie quite still. You"ve been so good and dear and unselfish. You"ve always done everything I"ve asked, even difficult things. This is quite easy. Just lie and think about me till I come back."
He bent over the bed and kissed her gently.
"Ah!" she sighed. There was a flacon on the table by the bed. He expected it to be jasmine. It was lavender water; he drenched her hair and brow and hands.
"That"s nice," said she. "I"m not really ill. I think it"s nice to be ill. Quite still do you mean, like that?"
She folded her hands, the white roses still clasped. The white bed, the white dress, the white flowers. Horrible!
"Yes," he said firmly, "just like that. I shall be back in five minutes."
He was not gone three. He came back and--till the doctor came, summoned by the concierge--he sat by her, holding her hands, covering her with furs from the wardrobe when she shivered, bathing her wrists with perfumed water when she threw off the furs and spoke of the fire that burned in her secret heart of cold clouds.
When the doctor came he went out by that excellent Irishman"s direction and telegraphed for a nurse.
Then he waited in the cool shaded sitting-room, among the flowers.
This was where he had hit her--as she said. There on the divan she had cried, leaning her head against his sleeve. Here, half-way to the door, they had kissed each other. No, he would certainly not go to England while she was ill. He felt sufficiently like a murderer already. But he would write. He glanced at her writing-table.
A little pang p.r.i.c.ked him, and drove him to the balcony.
"No," he said, "if we are to hit people, at least let us. .h.i.t them fairly." But all the same he found himself playing with the word-puzzle whose solution was the absolutely right letter to Betty"s father, asking her hand in marriage.
"Well," he asked the doctor who closed softly the door of the bedroom and came forward, "is it brain-fever?"
"Holy Ann, no! Brain fever"s a fell disease invented by novelists--I never met it in all _my_ experience. The doctors in novels have special advantages. No, it"s influenza--pretty severe touch too. She ought to have been in bed days ago. She"ll want careful looking after."
"I see," said Vernon. "Any danger?"
"There"s always danger, Lord--Saint-Croix isn"t it?"
"I have not the honour to be Lady St. Craye"s husband," said Vernon equably. "I was merely calling, and she seemed so ill that I took upon myself to--"
"I see--I see. Well, if you don"t mind taking on yourself to let her husband know? It"s a nasty case. Temperature 104. Perhaps her husband "ud be as well here as anywhere."
"He"s dead," said Vernon.
"Oh!" said the doctor with careful absence of expression. "Get some woman to put her to bed and to stay with her till the nurse comes.
She"s in a very excitable state. Good afternoon. I"ll look in after dinner."
When Vernon had won the concierge to the desired service, had seen the nurse installed, had dined, called for news of Lady St. Craye, learned that she was "_toujours tres souffrante_," he went home, pulled a table into the middle of his large, bare, hot studio, and sat down to write to the Reverend Cecil Underwood.
"I mean to do it," he told himself, "and it can"t hurt _her_ my doing it now instead of a month ahead, when she"s well again. In fact, it"s better for all of us to get it settled one way or another while she"s not caring about anything."
So he wrote. And he wrote a great deal, though the letter that at last he signed was quite short:
My Dear Sir:
I have the honour to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage. When you asked me, most properly, my intentions, I told you that I was betrothed to another lady. This is not now the case. And I have found myself wholly unable to forget the impression made upon me last year by Miss Desmond. My income is about 1,700 a year, and increases yearly. I beg to apologise for anything which may have annoyed you in my conduct last year, and to a.s.sure you that my esteem and affection for Miss Desmond are lasting and profound, and that, should she do me the honour to accept my proposal, I shall devote my life"s efforts to secure her happiness.
I am, my dear Sir, Your obedient servant,
Eustace Vernon.
"That ought to do the trick," he told himself. "Talk of old world courtesy and ceremonial! Anyhow, I shall know whether she"s at Long Barton by the time it takes to get an answer. If it"s two days, she"s there. If it"s longer she isn"t. He"ll send my letter on to her--unless he suppresses it. Your really pious people are so shockingly unscrupulous."
There is nothing so irretrievable as a posted letter. This came home to Vernon as the envelope dropped on the others in the box at the Cafe du Dome--came home to him rather forlornly.
Next morning he called with more roses for Lady St. Craye, pinky ones this time.
"Milady was toujours _tres souffrante_. It would be ten days, at the least, before Milady could receive, even a very old friend, like Monsieur."
The letter reached Long Barton between the Guardian and a catalogue of Some Rare Books. The Reverend Cecil read it four times. He was trying to be just. At first he thought he would write "No" and tell Betty years later. But the young man had seen the error of his ways. And 1,700 a year!--
The surprise visit with which the Reverend Cecil had always intended to charm his step-daughter suddenly found its date quite definitely fixed. This could not be written. He must go to the child and break it to her very gently, very tenderly--find out quite delicately and cleverly exactly what her real feelings were. Girls were so shy about those things.
Miss Julia Desmond had wired him from Suez that she would be in Paris next week--had astonishingly asked him to meet her there.
"Paris next Tuesday Gare St. Lazare 6:45. Come and see Betty via Dieppe," had been her odd message.
He had not meant to go--not next Tuesday. He was afraid of Miss Julia Desmond. He would rather have his Lizzie all to himself. But now--
He wrote a cablegram to Miss Julia Desmond: "Care Captain S.S. Urania, Brindisi: Will meet you in Paris." Then he thought that this might seem to the telegraph people not quite nice, so he changed it to: "Going to see Lizzie Tuesday."