Part 40 (2/2)
”Glib tongue and empty heart,” she quoted. ”Nigel, I would never trust you. I believe you're in love with Naida.”
”And I'm not quite so sure about you,” he observed, watching the colour rise quickly in her cheeks. ”Off with you to dress, young woman. It's past seven, and we must be there early. I still have the wine to order.”
The dinner party was in its way a complete success. Prince Karschoff was there, benign and distinguished; Chalmers and one or two other young men from the American Emba.s.sy. There was a sprinkling of Maggie's girl friends, a leaven of the older world in Nigel's few intimates,--and Naida, very pale but more beautiful than ever in a white velvet gown, her hair brushed straight back, and with no jewellery save one long rope of pearls. Nigel who in his capacity as host had found little time for personal conversation during the service of dinner, deliberately led her a little apart when they pa.s.sed out into the lounge for coffee and to watch the dancing.
”My duties are over for a time,” he said. ”Do you realise that I have not had a word with you alone since our luncheon at Ciro's?”
”We have all been a little engrossed, have we not?” she murmured. ”I hope that you are satisfied with the way things have turned out.”
”Nothing shall induce me to talk politics or empire-saving to-night,” he declared, with a smile. ”I have other things to say.”
”Tell me why you asked us all to dine so suddenly,” she enquired. ”I do not know whether it is my fancy, but there seems to be an air of celebration about. Is there any announcement to be made?”
He shook his head.
”None. The party was just a whim of Maggie's.”
They both looked across towards the ballroom, where she was dancing with Chalmers.
”Maggie is very beautiful to-night,” Naida said. ”I could scarcely listen to my neighbour's conversation at dinner time for looking at her.
Yet she has the air all the time of living in a dream, as though something had happened which had lifted her right away from us all. I began to wonder,” she added, ”whether, after all, Oscar Immelan had not told me the truth, and whether we should not be drinking her health and yours before the evening was over.”
”You could scarcely believe that,” he whispered, ”if you have any memory at all.”
There was a faint touch of pink in her cheeks, a tinge of colour as delicate as the pa.s.sing of a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne over a sea-glistening sh.e.l.l.
”But Englishmen are so unfaithful,” she sighed.
”Then I at least am an exception,” Nigel answered swiftly. ”The words which you checked upon my lips the last time we were alone together still live in my heart. I think, Naida, the time has come to say them.”
Their immediate neighbours had deserted them. He leaned a little towards her.
”You know so well that I love you, Naida,” he said. ”Will you be my wife?”
She looked up at him, half laughing, yet with tears in her eyes. With an impulsive little gesture, she caught his hand in hers for a moment.
”How horribly sure you must have felt of me,” she complained, ”to have spoken here, with all these people around! Supposing I had told you that my life's work lay amongst my own people, or that I had made up my mind to marry Oscar Immelan, to console him for his great disappointment.”
”I shouldn't have believed you,” he answered, smiling.
”Conceit!” she exclaimed.
He shook his head.
”In a sense, of course, I am conceited,” he replied. ”I am the happiest and proudest man here. I really think that after all we ought to turn it into a celebration.”
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