She handed the earl a telegram.
"Shall I read it?" he asked.
"Of course," she answered.
He read--"_I"m richer, but no shorter. Is there a hotel in Venice big enough to take me in? Wire answer._ PHELIM."
"Will you send this reply for me?" she asked, when the earl had read Phelim"s telegram.
"To be sure I will," he said.
"How many words are there?" she asked. "I"ll pay for it."
Thus compelled, the earl read her answer--"_Come, rich or poor, long or short. Come._ NORA."
The earl went off with the telegram, thinking.
The next afternoon the earl came out of the church--his fifth visit since ten o"clock--and there, near the fountain, were Lady Nora and her aunt. The earl marked them from the church steps. There was no mistaking Miss O"Kelly"s green parasol.
This time Lady Nora met him with animation. She even came toward him, her face wreathed in smiles.
"Phelim has come!" she exclaimed.
"Quite happy--I"m sure," said the earl. "He"s prompt, isn"t he?"
"Yes," said Lady Nora, "he"s always prompt. He doesn"t lose shirt-studs, and he never dawdles."
"Ah!" said the earl.
"Here he comes!" exclaimed Lady Nora, and she began to wave her handkerchief.
The earl turned and saw, coming from the corner by the clock-tower, a man. He had the shoulders of Hercules, the waist of Apollo, the legs of Mercury. When he came closer, hat in hand, the earl saw that he had curling chestnut locks, a beard that caressed his chin, brown eyes, and white teeth, for he was smiling.
"Nora," he cried, as he came within distance, "your friend the cardinal is a good one. He puts on no side. He had me up on the balcony, opened your letter, took out the check, and read the letter before even he looked at the stamped paper. When a man gets a check in a letter and reads the letter before he looks at the check, he shows breedin"."
"The Earl of Vauxhall," said Lady Nora, "I present Mr. Phelim Blake."
The two men nodded; the earl, guardedly; Phelim, with a smile.
"I think, my lord," said Phelim, "that you are not in Venice for her antiquities. No more am I. I arrived this mornin" and I"ve been all over the place already. I was just thinkin" that time might hang. Twice a day I"ve to go out to the yacht to propose to Nora. Durin" the intervals we might have a crack at piquet."
The earl was embarra.s.sed. He was not accustomed to such frankness. He was embarra.s.sed also by the six feet three of Phelim. He himself was only six feet.
"I do not know piquet," he said.
"Ah," said Phelim, "it cost me much to learn what I know of it, and I will gladly impart that little for the pleasure of your companionship. I will play you for love."
The earl took counsel with himself--"So long as he is playing piquet with me," he said to himself, "so long he cannot be making love to Nora."
"How long will it take me to learn the game?" he asked.
"As long," answered Phelim, "as you have ready money. When you begin to give due bills you have begun to grasp the rudiments of the game."
"Then," said the earl, "I shall be an apt pupil, for I shall give an IOU the first time I lose"
"In piquet," said Phelim, squaring himself, and placing the index finger of his right hand in his left hand, after the manner of the didactic, "the great thing is the discard, and your discard should be governed by two considerations--first, to better your own hand, and second, to cripple your opponent"s. Your moderate player never thinks of this latter consideration. His only thought is to better his own hand. He never discards an ace. The mere size of it dazzles him, and he will keep aces and discard tens, forgetting that you cannot have a sequence of more than four without a ten, and that you can have one of seven without the ace, and that a king is as good as an ace, if the latter is in the discard. I am speakin" now," continued Phelim, "of the beginner. Let us suppose one who has spent one thousand pounds on the game, and is presumed to have learned somethin" for his money. His fault is apt to be that he sacrifices too much that he may count cards. I grant you that you cannot count sixty or ninety if your opponent has cards, but you may, if cards are tied. When I was a beginner I used to see Colonel Mellish make discards, on the mere chance of tyin" the cards, that seemed to me simply reckless. I soon discovered, however, that they were simply scientific. One more thing--always remember that there is no average card in a piquet pack. The average is halfway between the ten-spot and the knave. Now, what are the chances of the junior hand discardin" a ten and drawin" a higher card? In the Kildare Club they are understood to be two and three-eighths to one against, although Colonel Mellish claims they are two and five-eighths to one. The colonel is an authority, but I think he is a trifle pessimistic. He--"
"There, Phelim," said Lady Nora, "I think that is enough for the first lesson. We dine at eight. If Lord Vauxhall has nothing better to do perhaps he will come with you."
"We"ll dine on deck, Phelim, dear," said Miss O"Kelly. "You won"t have to go below."
VII
The next morning the earl went to the church, as usual. He had not slept well. The advent of Phelim had set him to thinking. Here was a rival; and a dangerous one. He admitted this grudgingly, for an Englishman is slow to see a rival in a foreigner, and who so foreign as an Irishman?
At dinner, on the yacht, the night before, Phelim had been much in evidence. His six feet three had impressed the earl"s six feet. Phelim had been well dressed. "Confound him," thought the earl, "he goes to Poole, or Johns & Pegg. Why doesn"t he get his clothes at home?" Then Phelim had talked much, and he had talked well. He had told stories at which the earl had been compelled to laugh. He had related experiences of his home-life, of the peasants, the priests, the clubs, hunting and shooting, his brief stay in Parliament, what he had seen in Venice during the last few days; and, when dinner was over, Lady Nora, who had been all attention, said: "Sing for us, Phelim," and they had gone below, Phelim stooping to save his head; and he had struck those mysterious chords upon the piano, by way of prelude, that silence talk, that put the world far away, that set the men to glancing at the women, and the women to glancing at the floor and making sure of their handkerchiefs, and then--he had sung.
How can one describe a song? As well attempt to paint a perfume.
When Phelim finished singing Miss O"Kelly went over and kissed him, and Lady Nora went away, her eyes glistening.
The earl remembered all these things as he went up the aisle. He had pa.s.sed that way five times each day for nine days. He came to the door of the treasury, thinking, not of Nora, but of Phelim--and the door was open.
He went in. The gorgeous color of the place stopped him, on the threshold. He saw the broidered vestments upon which gold was the mere background; jacinths were the stamens of the flowers, and pierced diamonds were the dewdrops on their leaves; he saw the chalices and patens of amethyst and jade, the crucifixes of beaten gold, in which rubies were set solid, as if they had been floated on the molten metal; he saw the seven-light candelabrum, the bobeches of which were sliced emeralds, and then his eyes, groping in this wilderness of beauty, lighted on the turquoise cup.
"My G.o.d!" he exclaimed, "she is right. She is selling herself for the most beautiful thing in the world. To steal it is a crime like Cromwell"s--too great to be punished," and he put out his hand.
Then, with the cup and Nora within his reach, he heard a still, small voice, and his hand fell.
He began to argue with his conscience. "Who owns this cup?" he asked.
"No one. The cardinal said it had been stolen. He said no one could sell it because no one could give t.i.tle. Why, then, is it not mine as well as any one"s? If I take it, whom do I wrong? Great men have never let trifles of right and wrong disturb their conduct. Who would ever have won a battle if he had taken thought of the widows? Who would ever have attained any great thing if he had not despised small things?" and he put out his hand again; and then came surging into his mind the provisions of that code which birth, a.s.sociations, his school life, and, most of all, his mother, had taught him. What would they say and do at his clubs? Where, in all the world, could he hide himself, if he did this thing? He turned and fled, and, running down the church steps, he came face to face with Lady Nora and Phelim. They were laughing gayly; but, when they saw the earl"s face, their laughter ceased.
"Have you seen a ghost, my lord?" asked Phelim.
The earl did not answer; he did not even hear. He stood gazing at Lady Nora. For one brief moment, when he stood before the cup, he had questioned whether a woman who would impose such a condition could be worth winning; and now, before her, her beauty overwhelmed him. He forgot Phelim; he forgot the pa.s.sers-by; he forgot everything, except the woman he loved--the woman he had lost.
"Nora," he said, "I give you back your promise. I cannot give you the cup."
The color left her cheeks and her hands flew up to her heart--she gazed at him with love and pity in her eyes, and then, suddenly, her cheeks flamed, her white teeth pressed her lower lip, her little foot stamped upon the pavement.
"Very well," she said, "I regret having given you so much trouble;" and she went toward the landing. She took three steps and then turned. The two men stood as she had left them.
"Phelim," she said, smiling, "_you_ would do something for me, if I were to ask you, would you not?"