"Do you happen to know that fellow"s name?" Chisholm asked, well aware that his friend was a popular figure in society and knew every one.
"What, the young fellow now speaking to Lady Meldrum? Oh, don"t you know? That"s the Grand-Duke Stanislas."
"The Grand-Duke?" echoed the Under-Secretary, as the truth at once became apparent. No doubt he had watched them separate and was now on his way in search of her.
"And is that elderly woman with white hair Lady Meldrum? I"ve heard of her. Wife of a big iron-founder in Glasgow, isn"t she?"
"That"s so," his friend answered. "But haven"t you met their ward, Muriel Mortimer? She was presented last year. Awfully pretty girl.
There she is, in cream, sitting close by Lady Meldrum. You should know her. Let me introduce you. I"m an old friend of the family, you know, and she"s been wanting to know you for ever so long."
At first he held back, declaring that he had to return to the House before it rose; but the Member for South Staffordshire would take no refusal, and a moment later the Under-Secretary found himself bowing before a fair-haired girl with a sweet, innocent-looking face, dimpled cheeks that blushed slightly as he was introduced, and a pair of large wide-open blue eyes that looked out upon him in wonder.
About twenty-two he judged her to be, fragile, pretty, almost child-like in her artless grace. Her complexion was perfect, and her rather plainly made toilette of cream chiffon suited her beauty admirably.
Indeed, demure and rather shy, she seemed out of place in that crowd of the more brilliant b.u.t.terflies of fashion.
A moment before, Dudley Chisholm had turned away from the dancers and had intended to drive down to the House in order to while away the rest of the night, but now this resolution was forgotten, because he had at once become interested in the girl with whom he had just made acquaintance, and all the more so when he recollected the colonel"s strange warning down at Wroxeter. He was bending towards her, speaking in commonplaces, reflecting the while that there certainly was nothing in her outward appearance to cause him terror.
And yet the colonel had prophesied correctly in regard to their meeting and had warned him to avoid her. Why? The mystery underlying the words of his friend was certainly remarkable.
He was really attracted towards her by her childlike absence of artificiality. Though the shyness of the _debutante_ had scarcely worn off, she committed no errors of etiquette. As she slowly fanned herself, she talked to him with all the gravity and composure of a woman of the world.
Lady Meldrum had also been introduced to him by the honourable Member for South Staffordshire, and she was, he discovered, a rather gushing, good-looking woman of the type p.r.o.ne to paying compliments quite indiscriminately.
Women nowadays keep their good looks much longer than they used to do.
The woman of forty, and even the woman of fifty, to-day is not so old as the woman of thirty was--well, thirty years ago. For this reason, no doubt, and because we are becoming so very Continental, the married women reign supreme, and appear to reign for ever. It seems absurd to read in the list of beauties at a ball, the names of mothers and daughters bracketed together; but, in several instances, if the truth were told, it should be the daughter"s name, and and not the mother"s, which ought to be left out.
"Do you know, Mr. Chisholm, I have already paid a visit to your chambers," her ladyship laughed. "Lady Richard Nevill took me up with her, fearing that I should catch cold while waiting in the carriage.
She has been staying with us down at Fernhurst. Perhaps you have heard?"
"She told me so," the Under-Secretary answered, at once summing her up as a rather vulgar person who had opened the door of society by means of a key fashioned out of gold.
"And now I must let you into another secret," she went on fussily. "I took Muriel to the House the other night, and we heard you speak."
He smiled.
"I don"t know what subject you heard me speak upon, Miss Mortimer," he said, turning to the blue-eyed girl in cream, "but I hope you were edified."
"I was intensely interested," the young girl said. "Mr. Blackwood," she added, indicating the Honourable Member who had introduced them,--"took us all through the House and showed us the library, the dining-rooms, the Lobby, and all the places that I"d read about. I had no idea the House of Commons was such a wonderful place and so full of creature comforts."
"Its wonders are very often tiresome," he remarked with a little smile.
"As a show-place, Miss Mortimer, it is one of the sights of England. As a place in which to spend half one"s days it is not the most comfortable, I a.s.sure you."
"Ah!" exclaimed Lady Meldrum; "of course; I quite understand. A man holding such an important position in the Government as you do can have but little time for leisure. I saw you with Lady Richard Nevill just now. She brought you here, of course."
"Yes," he admitted. "I go out very little."
"And she induced you to come here with her. Charming woman! She was the light and soul of our party at Fernhurst."
And as the wife of the Jubilee knight continued to make claims upon Dudley"s attention, he was prevented from exchanging more than a few words with the sweet-faced girl against whom he had been so strangely warned by the man who for so many years had been one of his closest friends.
This plump wife of the estimable Scotch iron-founder was a recent importation into society. She had, he heard, been "taken up" by Claudia, and owed all her success to her ladyship"s introductions. It is not given to every one to entertain a Grand-Duke for the shooting, and her fame as a hostess had been considerably increased by her good fortune in this respect.
She chattered steadily until the tall, thin-faced Duke of Penarth himself strolled past, bowed on catching sight of her, and stayed to talk for a few moments. Lady Meldrum did not hesitate when it was necessary to choose between a sprat and a whale. She at once turned aside from Dudley, thus giving him a chance to improve the occasion with her ward.
Yes, he decided, she was possessed of a charming ingenuousness; and yet at the same time there was nothing of the school-miss about her.
She had given a very candid and amusing opinion regarding the controversy which had taken place in the House at the time of her visit, and had openly expressed her admiration of the determined and outspoken manner in which he had supported the Government and crushed the arguments of the Opposition.
"I really suspect you to be a politician, Miss Mortimer," he laughed presently. "You seem well-versed in so many points of our foreign policy."
"Oh," she answered with a smile. "I read the papers in preference to novels, that"s the reason."
Another waltz was commencing. As he turned to glance to the centre of the room, his eyes fell upon a couple gliding together among the dancers. He bit his lip, for he recognised them as the Grand-Duke and the woman who only an hour ago had vowed that she still loved him.
He turned back again to that pale, childish face with the blue eyes, and saw truth, honesty, and purity mirrored there.
Yet he had been distinctly and seriously warned against her--even her.
Why, he wondered, had the colonel spoken in so forcible a fashion, and yet refused a single word of explanation?
It was an enigma, to say the least of it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
TAKES DUDLEY BY A BY-PATH.
To love faithfully is to love with singleness of heart and sameness of purpose, through all the temptations which society presents, and under all the a.s.saults of vanity both from within and without. It is so pleasant for a woman to be admired and so soothing to her to be loved, that the grand trial of female constancy is to refrain from adding one more conquest to her triumphs when it is evidently in her power to do so. Obviously her chief protection is to restrain the first indefinite thoughts which, if allowed to gain clearness and swiftness, may lead her fancy astray. Even the ideas which commonly float through the mind of woman are so rapid and so indistinctly shaped, that when the door is opened to such thoughts as these they pour in like a torrent. Then first will arise a sudden perception of deficiency in the object of her love, or some additional impression of his unkindness or neglect, with comparisons between him and other men, and regret that he has not some quality which they possess; sadness under a conviction of her future destiny, pining for sympathy under that sadness, and, lastly, the commencement of some other intimacy, which at first she has no idea of converting into love.
Such is the manner in which, in thousands of cases, the faithfulness of woman"s love has been destroyed, and destroyed far more effectually than if a.s.sailed by an open, and, apparently, more formidable foe. And what a wreck has followed! For when woman loses her integrity and her self-respect, she is indeed pitiable and degraded. While her faithfulness remains unshaken, it is true she may, and probably will, have much to suffer; but let her destiny in this life be what it may, she will walk through the world with a firm and upright step. To live solitary may be the cost of her n.o.ble behaviour; but often this solitude will represent a decoration more splendid than any to be received from the hands of queens and emperors.
I may be accused of a cold philosophy in speaking of such consolation being efficacious under the suffering which arises from unkindness and desertion; but who would not rather be the one to bear injury than the one to inflict it? The very act of bearing it meekly and reverently, as from the hand of G.o.d, has a purifying and solemnising effect upon the soul, which the faithless and the fickle never can experience.
Dudley Chisholm sat before the fire in his room until the dawn, trying to unravel a thousand knots, his mind filled with sad memories and with bitter regrets in plenty.
Muriel Mortimer had interested him, just as a child sometimes interests the pedantic philosopher. He had found hers a frank, open, girlish nature, as yet unspoiled by its contact with the smart, well-dressed, vicious set into which the ambitious Lady Meldrum had seen fit to plunge her. He admired her as one standing apart from most of the women he knew, for she had displayed an intelligence and a knowledge of political affairs that surprised him. She, on her side, seemed to regard him rather fearfully, as one of the powers of the State. This amused him, and he a.s.sured her that he could not honestly claim to be more than the mouthpiece of the Foreign Office. Yes, she was as charming as she was ingenuous.
And Claudia? He reflected upon all that he had said, and upon all her answers; yet somehow he could not make up his mind whether she were really false.
When he recollected the quick pa.s.sion of her caresses, the tenderness of her words, the gentle sympathy with which she had asked him to confide in her, he found it difficult to believe that she could actually forget him five minutes after leaving him in that ballroom, and waltz airily with the man with whose name her own was being everywhere coupled.
To him, honest, upright man that he was, this seemed an absolute impossibility. He refused to believe it. Surely she loved him, in spite of her perplexing caprices; surely she had been seized by remorse for her own fickleness.
He endeavoured to compare the two women, but the comparison caused him to start up in quick impatience.
"No!" he cried aloud in a fierce voice. "A thousand times no! I love Claudia--no one else!--no one else in all the world!"
Next day when he entered his room at Downing Street, Wrey, his secretary, put before him a quant.i.ty of doc.u.ments requiring attention.
He held the responsible office of superintending under-secretary of the Commercial Department of Her Majesty"s Foreign Office, the business of which consisted of correspondence with our Ministers and Consuls abroad; with the representatives of the Foreign Powers in England, and with the Board of Trade and other departments of the Government. He had been absorbed in these papers for some hours, s.n.a.t.c.hing only a few minutes for a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit at luncheon-time, when Wrey returned to remind him of a long-standing engagement that evening at the little town of G.o.dalming, which was in his const.i.tuency, four miles from Albury.