"I"m thinking that I"d still go too," he said.
"But if you didn"t know?" She asked the question with a curious vehemence. Her instinct told her that, however he might profess to trifle, here at least was a man.
"That wouldn"t happen," he said, with conviction, "if I were the lion."
The music was quickening to the _finale_, and she felt the strong arm grow tense about her.
"Come!" he said. "We will go into the garden."
She went with him because it seemed that she must, but deep in her heart there lurked a certain misgiving. There was an almost arrogant air of power about this man. She wondered what Sir Roland would say if he knew, and comforted herself almost immediately with the reflection that he never could know. He had gone to Scotland, and she did not expect him back for several weeks.
So she turned aside with this stranger, and pa.s.sed out upon his arm into the dusk of the soft spring night.
"You know these gardens well?" he questioned.
She came out of her meditations.
"Not really well. Lady Blythebury and I are friends, but we do not visit very often."
"And that but secretly," he laughed, "when the lion is absent?" She did not answer him, and he continued after a moment: ""Pon my life, the very mention of him seems to cast a cloud. Let us draw a magic circle, and exclude him!" He waved his wand. "You knew that I was a magician?"
There was a hint of something more than banter in his voice. They had reached the end of the terrace, and were slowly descending the steps.
But at his last words, Lady Brooke stood suddenly still.
"I only believe in one sort of magic," she said, "and that is beyond the reach of all but fools."
Her voice quivered with an almost pa.s.sionate disdain. She was suddenly aware of an intense burning misery that seemed to gnaw into her very soul. Why had she come out with this buffoon, she wondered? Why had she come to the masquerade at all? She was utterly out of sympathy with its festive gaiety. A great and overmastering desire for solitude descended upon her. She turned almost angrily to go.
But in the same instant the jester"s hand caught her own.
"Even so, lady," he said. "But the magic of fools has led to paradise before now."
She laughed out bitterly:
"A fool"s paradise!"
"Is ever green," he said whimsically. "Faith, it"s no place at all for cynics. Shall we go hand in hand to find it then--in case you miss the way?"
She laughed again at the quaint adroitness of his speech. But her lips were curiously unsteady, and she found the darkness very comforting.
There was no moon, and the sky was veiled. She suffered the strong clasp of his fingers about her own without protest. What did it matter--for just one night?
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Wait till we get there!" murmured her companion. "We are just within the magic circle. Una has escaped from the lion."
She felt turf beneath her feet, and once or twice the brushing of twigs against her hand. She began to have a faint suspicion as to whither he was leading her. But she would not ask a second time. She had yielded to his guidance, and though her heart fluttered strangely she would not seem to doubt. The dread of Sir Roland"s displeasure had receded to the back of her mind. Surely there was indeed magic abroad that night! It seemed diffused in the very air she breathed. In silence they moved along the dim gra.s.s path. From far away there came to them fitfully the sound of music, remote and wonderful, like straying echoes of paradise.
A soft wind stirred above them, lingering secretly among opening leaves.
There was a scent of violets almost intoxicatingly sweet.
The silence seemed magnetic. It held them like a spell. Through it, vague and intangible as the night at first, but gradually taking definite shape, strange thoughts began to rise in the girl"s heart.
She had consented to this adventure from sheer lack of purpose. But whither was it leading her? She was a married woman, with her shackles heavy upon her. Yet she walked that night with a stranger, as one who owned her freedom. The silence between them was intimate and wonderful, the silence which only kindred spirits can ever know. It possessed her magically, making her past life seem dim and shadowy, and the present only real.
And yet she knew that she was not free. She trespa.s.sed on forbidden ground. She tasted the forbidden fruit, and found it tragically sweet.
Suddenly and softly he spoke:
"Does the magic begin to work?"
She started and tried to stop. Surely it were wiser to go back while she had the will! But he drew her forward still. The mist overhead was faintly silver. The moon was rising.
"We will go to the heart of the tangle," he said. "There is nothing to fear. The lion himself could not frighten you here."
Again she yielded to him. There was a suspicion of raillery in his voice that strangely rea.s.sured her. The grasp of his hand was very close.
"We are in the maze," she said at last, breaking her silence. "Are you sure of the way?"
He answered her instantly with complete self-a.s.surance.
"Like the heart of a woman, it"s hard, that it is, to find. But I think I have the key. And if not, by the saints, I"m near enough now to break through."
The words thrilled her inexplicably. Truly the magic was swift and potent. A few more steps, and she was aware of a widening of the hedge.
They were emerging into the centre of the maze.
"Ah," said the jester, "I thought I should win through!"
He led her forward into the shadow of a great tree. The mist was pa.s.sing very slowly from the sky. By the silvery light that filtered down from the hidden moon Naomi made out the strong outline of his shoulders as he stood before her, and the vague darkness of his mask.
She put up her free hand and removed her own. The breeze had died down.
The atmosphere was hushed and airless.
"Do you know the way back?" she asked him, in a voice that sounded unnatural even to herself.
"Do you want to go back, then?" he queried keenly.
There was something in his tone--a subtle something that she had not detected before. She began to tremble. For the first time, actual fear took hold of her.
"You must know the way back!" she exclaimed. "This is folly! They will be wondering where we are."
"Faith, Lady Una! It is the fool"s paradise," he told her coolly. "They will not wonder. They know too well that there is no way back."
His manner terrified her. Its very quietness seemed a menace.
Desperately she tore herself from his hold, and turned to escape. But it was as though she fled in a nightmare. Whichever way she turned she met only the impenetrable ramparts of the hedge that surrounded her. She could find neither entrance nor exit. It was as though the way by which she had come had been closed behind her.
But the brightness above was growing. She whispered to herself that she would soon be able to see, that she could not be a prisoner for long.
Suddenly she heard her captor close to her, and, turning in terror, she found him erect and dominating against the hedge. With a tremendous effort she controlled her rising panic to plead with him.
"Indeed, I must go back!" she said, her voice unsteady, but very urgent.