"Ah!"
"I have brought home a consignment valued at seventy thousand pounds."
Sir John"s face never changed.
"And," he asked, with veiled sarcasm, "do you carry out the--er--commercial part of the scheme?"
"I shall begin to arrange for the sale of the consignment to-morrow.
I shall have no difficulty--at least, I antic.i.p.ate none. Yes, I do the commercial part--as well as the other. I held the Plateau against two thousand natives for three months, with fifty-five men. But I do the commercial part as well."
As he was looking into the fire still, Sir John stole a long comprehensive glance at his son"s face. His old eyes lighted up with pride and something else--possibly love. The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven. Jack looked at it thoughtfully, then he rose.
"I must not keep you any longer," he said, somewhat stiffly.
Sir John rose also.
"I dare say you are tired; you need rest. In some ways you look stronger, in others you look f.a.gged and pulled down."
"It is the result of my illness," said Jack. "I am really quite strong."
He paused, standing on the hearthrug, then suddenly he held out his hand.
"Good-night," he said.
"Good-night."
Sir John allowed him to go to the door, to touch the handle, before he spoke.
"Then--" he said, and Jack paused. "Then we are no farther on?"
"In what way?"
"In respect to the matter over which we unfortunately disagreed before you went away?"
Jack turned, with his hand on the door.
"I have not changed my mind in any respect," he said gently. "Perhaps you are inclined to take my altered circ.u.mstances into consideration--to modify your views."
"I am getting rather old for modification," answered Sir John suavely.
"And you see no reason for altering your decision?"
"None."
"Then I am afraid we are no farther on." He paused. "Good-night," he added gently, as he opened the door.
"Good-night."
CHAPTER x.x.xV. ENGAGED
Well, there"s the game. I throw the stakes.
Lady Cantourne was sitting alone in her drawing-room, and the expression of her usually bright and smiling face betokened considerable perturbation.
Truth to tell, there were not many things in life that had power to frighten her ladyship very much. Hers had been a prosperous life as prosperity is reckoned. She had married a rich man who had retained his riches while he lived and had left them to her when he died. And that was all the world knew of Lady Cantourne. Like the majority of us, she presented her character and not herself to her neighbours; and these held, as neighbours do, that the cheery, capable little woman of the world whom they met everywhere was Lady Cantourne. Circ.u.mstances alter us less than we think. If we are of a gay temperament--gay we shall be through all. If sombre, no happiness can drive that sombreness away.
Lady Cantourne was meant for happiness and a joyous motherhood. She had had neither; but she went on being "meant" until the end--that is to say, she was still cheery and capable. She had thrown an open letter on the little table at her side--a letter from Jack Meredith announcing his return to England, and his natural desire to call and pay his respects in the course of the afternoon.
"So," she had said before she laid the letter aside, "he is home again--and he means to carry it through?"
Then she had settled down to think, in her own comfortable chair (for if one may not be happy, comfort is at all events within the reach of some of us), and the troubled look had supervened.
Each of our lives is like a book with one strong character moving through its pages. The strong character in Lady Cantourne"s book had been Sir John Meredith. Her whole life seemed to have been spent on the outskirts of his--watching it. And what she had seen had not been conducive to her own happiness.
She knew that the note she had just received meant a great deal to Sir John Meredith. It meant that Jack had come home with the full intention of fulfilling his engagement to Millicent Chyne. At first she had rather resented Sir John"s outspoken objection to her niece as his son"s wife.
But during the last months she had gradually come round to his way of thinking; not, perhaps, for the first time in her life. She had watched Millicent. She had studied her own niece dispa.s.sionately, as much from Sir John Meredith"s point of view as was possible under the circ.u.mstances. And she had made several discoveries. The first of these had been precisely that discovery which one would expect from a woman--namely, the state of Millicent"s own feelings.
Lady Cantourne had known for the last twelve months--almost as long as Sir John Meredith had known--that Millicent loved Jack. Upon this knowledge came the humiliation--the degradation--of one flirtation after another; and not even after, but interlaced. Guy Oscard in particular, and others in a minor degree, had pa.s.sed that way. It was a shameless record of that which might have been good in a man prost.i.tuted and trampled under foot by the vanity of a woman. Lady Cantourne was of the world worldly; and because of that, because the finest material has a seamy side, and the highest walks in life have the hardiest weeds, she knew what love should be. Here was a love--it may be modern, advanced, chic, fin-de-siecle, up-to-date, or anything the coming generation may choose to call it--but it was eminently cheap and ephemeral because it could not make a little sacrifice of vanity. For the sake of the man she loved--mark that!--not only the man to whom she was engaged, but whom she loved--Millicent Chyne could not forbear pandering to her own vanity by the sacrifice of her own modesty and purity of thought. There was the sting for Lady Cantourne.
She was tolerant and eminently wise, this old lady who had made one huge mistake long ago; and she knew that the danger, the harm, the low vulgarity lay in the little fact that Millicent Chyne loved Jack Meredith, according to her lights.
While she still sat there the bell rang, and quite suddenly she chased away the troubled look from her eyes, leaving there the keen, kindly gaze to which the world of London society was well accustomed. When Jack Meredith came into the room, she rose to greet him with a smile of welcome.
"Before I shake hands," she said, "tell me if you have been to see your father."
"I went last night--almost straight from the station. The first person I spoke to in London, except a cabman."
So she shook hands.
"You know," she said, without looking at him--indeed, carefully avoiding doing so--"life is too short to quarrel with one"s father. At least it may prove too short to make it up again--that is the danger."
She sat down, with a graceful swing of her silken skirt which was habitual with her--the remnant of a past day.
Jack Meredith winced. He had seen a difference in his father, and Lady Cantourne was corroborating it.
"The quarrel was not mine," he said. "I admit that I ought to have known him better. I ought to have spoken to him before asking Millicent. It was a mistake."
Lady Cantourne looked up suddenly.
"What was a mistake?"
"Not asking his--opinion first."
She turned to the table where his letter lay, and fingered the paper pensively.