"Your last "function" of the season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter the room beyond.
"Yes. It is Lucy"s birthday."
"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"
"Just twenty-one."
And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to follow.
"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he entered. "Now, why----"
"Why don"t I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley, with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a fancy to her she was playing about on the sh.o.r.e at a little seaside place on the Suss.e.x coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amus.e.m.e.nts as are suitable to her age and s.e.x, I have no other intentions concerning her."
Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent drawing-room in which he now stood,--a drawing-room more like a royal reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his somewhat severely featured countenance.
"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think--I really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the matrimonial market!"
Helmsley"s deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.
"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it"s too late for him to try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl and a pretty one,--but now that she has grown from a child into a woman I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do something for herself in finding a good husband."
Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:--
"Well--good-night! or rather good-morning! It"s past one o"clock. Shall I see you again before you leave town?"
"Probably. If not, you will hear from me."
"You won"t reconsider the advisability of----"
"No, I won"t!" And Helmsley smiled. "I"m quite obstinate on that point.
If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,--if not, why then you will in due course receive your instructions."
Vesey studied him with thoughtful attention.
"You"re a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But I can"t help liking you. I only wish you were not quite so--so romantic!"
"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic--but I"m not now."
"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened into a smile. "A man of your age doesn"t want to be loved for himself alone unless he"s very romantic indeed! And that"s what you do want!--and that"s what I"m afraid you won"t get, in your position--not as this world goes! Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase, and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.
"That"s Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young people,--the star of Love!"
CHAPTER II
On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady"s bower, softly carpeted, adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite s.e.xes as might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the night,--a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women"s silken garments, the clatter of plates and gla.s.ses in the dining-room, where a costly ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,--the silvery tripping and slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor--all these sounds, intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the host and entertainer of the a.s.sembled guests, watched the brilliant scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own home.
"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"
He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey through life,--must all pa.s.s out of his possession in a few brief years, and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped him----
"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman"s purring voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for a girl, I"m _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_ we do without you!"
"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the speaker, a c.u.mbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I a.s.sure you! Don"t trouble yourself about me--I"m very well."
"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be _over_-particular!"
"_You_ shouldn"t call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing that she expected this from him, "you"re quite a young woman."
Mrs. Sorrel gave a little deprecatory laugh.
"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn"t married at sixteen, you know!"
"No? You surprise me!"
Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly dubious air. She was never quite sure in her own mind as to the way in which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was necessary--or so Mrs. Sorrel thought--to deal with him delicately and cautiously--neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted seriousness. One"s plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circ.u.mspection.
And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at Helmsley"s half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.
"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I really thought myself quite an _old_ bride! I was a mother at twenty-one."
Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement, particularly as he had often heard it before.
"Who is Lucy dancing with?" he asked irrelevantly, by way of diversion.
"Oh, my _dear_ Mr. Helmsley, who is she _not_ dancing with!" and Mrs.
Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room has rushed at her--positively rushed!--and her programme was full five minutes after she arrived! Isn"t she looking lovely to-night?--a perfect sylph! _Do_ tell me you think she is a sylph!"
David"s old eyes twinkled.
"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought to find a good husband easily."
"She ought,--indeed she ought! But it is very difficult--very, very difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love--ah!--how different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was everything then,--and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"
"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley, with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you had equally proved it in yours!"
Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said unpleasant things--truthful, but eminently tactless,--and she felt that he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music just then ceased, and her daughter"s figure, tall, slight, and marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the ballroom and came towards her.
"Dearest child!" she exclaimed effusively, "are you not _quite_ tired out?"
The "dearest child" shrugged her white shoulders and laughed.