Part 21 (1/2)

”Suppose? There is no supposing about it. He is.” And the Duke looked at his friend as if he would have said, ”If I, a real, palpable, tangible, hereditary duke, do not know a gentleman when I see one, what can _you_ possibly know about it, I would like to inquire?” And that settled the matter.

But Mr. Barker was uneasy in his mind. An idea was at work there which was diametrically opposed to the union of Claudius and Margaret, and day by day, as he watched the intimacy growing back into its old proportions, he ground his gold-filled teeth with increasing annoyance.

He sought opportunities for saying and doing things that might curtail the length of those hours when Claudius sat at her side, ostensibly reading. Ostensibly? Yes--the first day or two after she had allowed him to come back to her side were days of unexampled industry and severe routine, only the most pertinent criticisms interrupting from time to time the even progress from line to line, from page to page, from paragraph to paragraph, from chapter to chapter. But soon the criticism became less close, the ill.u.s.tration more copious, the tongue more eloquent, and the glance less shy. The elective strength of their two hearts rose up and wrought mightily, saying, ”We are made for each other, we understand each other, and these foolish mortals who carry us about in their bosoms shall not keep us apart.” And to tell the truth, the foolish mortals made very little effort. Margaret did not believe that Claudius could possibly break his plighted word, and he knew that he would die rather than forfeit his faith. And so they sat side by side with the book, ostensibly reading, actually talking, most of the day.

And sometimes one or the other would go a little too near the forbidden point, and then there was a moment's silence, and the least touch of embarra.s.sment; and once Margaret laughed a queer little laugh at one of these stumbles, and once Claudius sighed. But they were very happy, and the faint colour that was natural to the Doctor's clear white skin came back as his heart was eased of its burden, and Margaret's dark cheek grew darker with the sun and the wind that she took no pains to keep from her face, though the olive flushed sometimes to a warmer hue, with pleasure--or what? She thought it was the salt breeze.

”How well those two look!” exclaimed Lady Victoria once to Mr. Barker.

”I have seen Claudius look ghastly,” said Barker, for he thought they looked too ”well” altogether.

”Yes; do you remember one morning--I think it was the day before, or the day after, the accident? I thought he was going to faint.”

”Perhaps he was sea-sick,” suggested Barker.

”Oh no, we were a week out then, and he was never ill at all from the first.”

”Perhaps he was love-sick,” said the other, willing to be spiteful.

”How ridiculous! To think of such a thing!” cried the stalwart English girl; for she was only a girl in years despite her marriage. ”But really,” she continued, ”if I were going to write a novel I would put those two people in it, they are so awfully good-looking. I would make all my heroes and heroines beautiful if I wrote books.”

”Then I fear I shall never be handed down to posterity by your pen, Lady Victoria,” said Barker, with a smile.

”No,” said she, eyeing him critically, ”I don't think I would put you in my book. But then, you know, I would not put myself in it either.”

”Ah,” grinned Mr. Barker, ”the book would lose by that, but I should gain.”

”How?” asked her ladys.h.i.+p.

”Because we should both be well out of it,” said he, having reached his joke triumphantly. But Lady Victoria did not like Mr. Barker, or his jokes, very much. She once said so to her brother. She thought him spiteful.

”Well, Vick,” said her brother good-naturedly, ”I daresay you are right. But he amuses me, and he is very square on settling days.”

Meanwhile Lady Victoria was not mistaken--Mr. Barker was spiteful; but she did not know that she was the only member of the party to whom he ventured to show it, because he thought she was stupid, and because it was such a relief to say a vicious thing now and then. He devoted himself most a.s.siduously to Miss Skeat, since Margaret would not accept his devotion to her, and indeed had given him little chance to show that he would offer it. The days sped fast for some of the party, slowly for others, and pretty much as they did anywhere else for the Duke, who was in no especial hurry to arrive in New York. His affairs were large enough to keep, and he had given himself plenty of time. But nevertheless his affairs were the object in view; and though he did not like to talk about those things, even with Barker, the fate of Claudius and Margaret as compared with the larger destinies of the Green Swash Mining Company were as the humble and unadorned mole-hill to the glories of the Himalaya. People had criticised the Duke's financial career in England. Why had he sold that snuffbox that Marie Therese gave to his ancestor when--well, you know when? Why had he converted those worm-eaten ma.n.u.scripts, whereon were traced many valuable things in a variety of ancient tongues, into coin of the realm? And why had he turned his Irish estates into pounds, into s.h.i.+llings, yea, and into pence. Pence--just think of it! He had sold his ancestral lands for _pence_; that was what it came to. These and many other things the scoffers scoffed, with a right good-will. But none save the Duke could tell how many broad fields of ripening grain, and vine-clad hills, and clean glistening miles of bright rail, and fat ore lands sodden with wealth of gold and silver and luscious sulphurets--none save the Duke could tell how much of these good things the Duke possessed in that great land beyond the sea, upon which if England were bodily set down it would be as hard to find as a threepenny bit in a ten-acre field. But the Duke never told. He went about his business quietly, for he said in his heart, ”Tus.h.!.+ I have children to be provided for; and if anything happens to the old country, I will save some bacon for them in the new, and they may call themselves dukes or farmers as far as I am concerned; but they shall not lack a few hundred thousand acres of homestead in the hour of need, neither a cow or two or a pig.”

The breeze held well, on the whole, and old Sturleson said they were having a wonderful run, which was doubtless an effort on the part of nature to atone for the injury she had done. But the days flew by, and yet they were not at their voyage's end. At last, as they sat sunning themselyes in the fair September weather, Sturleson came to them, his bright quadrant, with its coloured gla.s.ses sticking out in all directions, in his hand, and told the Duke he thought that by to-morrow afternoon they would sight the Hook. The party were all together, as it happened, and there was a general shout, in which, however, Claudius joined but faintly. He longed for contrary winds, and he wished that Sandy Hook and all its appurtenances, including New York and the United States, would sink gently down to the bottom of the sea. He knew, and Sturleson had told him, that with unfavourable weather they might be at sea a month, and he was one of the two who voted to go to Bermuda when the accident occurred.

That evening, as the sun was going down to his tossing bed of golden waves, all canopied with softest purple, Margaret stood leaning over the taffrail. Every st.i.tch of canvas was out--topsails, gaff-topsails, staysails, and jibs--and the good yacht bounded with a will to the bright west. But the dark woman looked astern to where the billows rolled together, forgetting what precious burden they had borne.

Claudius stole to her side and stood a moment looking at her face.

”So it is over,” he said at last.

”Nearly over. It has been very pleasant,” said she.

”It has been more than pleasant. It has been divine--for me.”

”Hus.h.!.+” said Margaret softly; ”remember.” There was silence, save for the rus.h.i.+ng of the rudder through the dark-blue foam. Again Claudius spoke, softly, and it seemed to her that the voice was not his, but rather that it came up mystically from the water below.

”Are you sorry it is over?” he asked--or the voice of the mighty deep welling up with its burden of truth.

”Yes, I am very sorry,” she answered, whether she would or no. The sun sank down, and the magic after-glow shone in the opposite sky, tinging s.h.i.+p and sails and waves.