"Bah!" she interrupted, scornfully. "I know. But you--there is some one else. That is our secret. Never mind, you do not care for him at any rate. You shall help me then. What do you say?"
"How can I help you?" I repeated. "Have I not already done all that I can by refusing to see him? What more can I do?"
"It was all a mistake--a stupid mistake, that idea of mine," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "Men are such fools. I ought not to have tried to keep you apart. He has been grim and furious always because he could not see you. I have had to suffer for it. It has been hateful. Oh, if you want to escape the greatest, the most hideous torture in this world," she cried, pa.s.sionately, her thin voice quavering with nervous agitation, "pray to G.o.d that you may never love a man who cares nothing for you. It is unbearable! It is worse than h.e.l.l! One is always humiliated, always in the dust."
I was very sorry for her, and she could not fail to see it.
"If you are so sure that he does not care for you--that he is not likely to care for you--would it not be better to go away and try to forget him?" I said. "It can only make you more miserable to stay here, if he is not kind to you."
She threw a curious glance at me. It was full of suspicion and full of malice.
"Oh, yes! of course you would advise me to go away," she exclaimed, spitefully. "You would give a good deal to be rid of me. I know. I wish----"
She leaned over a little nearer to me, and drew in her breath with a little hiss. Her eyes were fixed upon my face eagerly.
"You wish what?" I asked her, calmly.
"I wish that I understood you; I wish I knew what you were afraid of. What have you to do with Philip Maltabar? If he is not your lover, who is he? If he is not your lover, what of Bruce Deville? Oh! if you have been fooling me!" she muttered, with glistening eyes.
"You are a little enigmatic," I said, coldly. "You seem to think that you have a right to know every detail of my private life."
"I want to know more, at any rate, than you will tell me," she answered; "yet there is just this for you to remember. I am one of those whose love is stronger than their hate. For my love"s sake I have forgotten to hate. But it may be that my love is vain. Then I shall put it from me if I can--crush it even though my life dies with it. But I shall not forget to hate. I came here with a purpose. It has grown weak, but it may grow strong again. Do you understand me?"
"You mean in plain words that if you do not succeed with Mr. Deville, you will recommence your search for the man you call Philip Maltabar."
She nodded her head slowly; her keen eyes were seeking to read mine.
"You will do as you choose, of course," I answered; "as regards Mr. Deville, I can do no more for you than I have done."
She commenced twisting her fingers nervously together, and her eyes never left my face.
"I think that you could do more than you have done," she said, meaningly. "You could do more if you would. That is why I am here. I have something to say to you about it."
"What is it?" I asked. "Better be plain with me. We have been talking riddles long enough."
"Oh, I will be plain enough," she declared, with a touch of blunt fierceness in her tone. "I believe that he cares for you, I believe that is why he will not think for a moment even of me. When I tell you that you know of course that I hate you."
"Oh, yes, I have known that for some time."
"I hate you!" she repeated, sullenly. "If you were to die I should be glad. If I had the means and the strength, I believe, I am sure that I would kill you myself."
I rose to my feet with a little shudder. She was terribly in earnest.
"I don"t think, unless you have anything more to say, that it is a particularly pleasant interview for either of us," I remarked, with my hand upon the bell. But she stopped me.
"I have something else to propose," she declared. "You have said that you do not love him. Very well. Perhaps his not seeing you has irritated him and made him impatient. See him. Let him ask you--he will not need much encouragement--and refuse him. Answer him so that he cannot possibly make any mistake. Be rude to him if you can. Perhaps then, if he knows that you are not to be moved, he will come to me. Do you understand?"
"Oh, yes, I understand," I said, slowly; "I understand perfectly. There is only one thing you seem to forget. Your idea that Mr. Deville is interested in me is only a surmise. It is more than possible that you are altogether mistaken. He and I are almost strangers. We have not met a dozen times in our lives. He has never shown any inclination to make any sort of proposal to me; I should think it most unlikely that he should ever do so. Supposing that you were right, it would probably be months before he would mention it to me, and I am going away."
She smiled at me curiously. How I hated that smile, with its almost feline-like exhibition of glistening white teeth!
"He will propose to you if you will let him," she said, confidently. "If you are really ignorant of that fact, and of your conquest, I can a.s.sure you of it."
Suddenly she broke off and looked intently out of the window. Across the park in the distance a tall, familiar figure was coming rapidly towards us. She turned and faced me.
"He is coming here now," she declared. "I am going away. You stay here and see him. Perhaps he will ask you now. Can"t you help him on to it? Remember, the more decidedly you refuse him the safer is Philip Maltabar. Be rude. Laugh at him; tell him he is too rough, too coa.r.s.e for you. That is what he thinks himself. Hurt his feelings--wound him. It will be the better for you. You are a woman, and you can do it. Listen! Do you want money? I am rich. You shall have--I will give you five--ten thousand pounds if--if--he ever asks me. Ten thousand pounds, and safety for Philip Maltabar. You understand!"
She glided out of the room with white, pa.s.sionate face and gleaming eyes. Whither she went I did not know. I stood there waiting for my visitor.
CHAPTER XXV
A PROPOSAL
She left me alone in the room, and I stood there for a minute or two without moving. I heard his quick step on the gravel path outside and then his summons at the door. Mechanically I rang the bell and directed that he should be shown in to me.
The door was opened and closed. Then he was ushered in, our little maid servant announcing him with a certain amount of unnecessary emphasis. She withdrew at once, and we were alone together. As he touched my hand I noticed that he was wearing a new suit of riding clothes, which became him very well, and a big bunch of violets in his b.u.t.tonhole.
"So I have found you at last, have I?" he said, standing over me as though he feared I might even now try to escape. "Was it by your maid"s mistake that I was allowed to come in this afternoon?"
"No," I answered; "I told her only a minute ago to show you in. I wanted to see you."
"You are extremely kind," he remarked, with a note of irony in his tone. "My patience was very nearly exhausted. I was beginning to wonder whether I should ever see you again."
"It was becoming just a question whether you would," I remarked. "We are closing the house up next week, I believe, and removing our "Penates" to Eastminster. Alice is busy packing already, and so ought I to be."
"If that is a hint to me," he remarked, "I decline to take any notice of it. I have something to say to you. I have had to wait long enough for the opportunity."
"A little more than a week," I murmured.
"Never mind how long," he declared. "It has seemed like a year. Tell me--are you glad that you are going away?"
"I am very glad," I admitted. "I am glad that we are all going away. In any case I should not have stayed. Perhaps you have heard that I am going to London with Mrs. Fortress?"
Evidently he had not heard. He looked at me in amazement.
"With Mrs. Fortress?" he repeated. "Did you say you were going with her?"
"Yes; I am going to be her secretary. I thought that she might have told you."
He was looking rather grave; certainly not pleased.
"I do not see what you want to be any one"s secretary for," he said, frowning. "You are going to leave here. Eastminster is a very pleasant place."
"I am afraid I should find it very dull," I answered. "I only admire cathedral cities from an external point of view. It would bore me horribly to have to live in one."