Part 7 (1/2)
”You stake much on your hazard,” she said, glancing back at Lali, who still stood immovable. ”Au revoir!” She left the room. Richard heard the door close after her and the servant retire. Then he turned to Lali.
As he did so, she ran forward to him with a cry. ”Oh, Richard, Richard!”
she exclaimed, with a sob, threw her arms over his shoulder, and let her forehead drop on his breast. Then came a sudden impulse in his blood.
Long after he shuddered when he remembered what he thought at that instant; what he wished to do; what rich madness possessed him. He knew now why he had come to town; he also knew why he must not stay, or, if staying, what must be his course.
He took her gently by the arm and led her to a chair, speaking cheerily to her. Then he sat down beside her, and all at once again, her face wet and burning, she flung herself forward on her knees beside him, and clung to him.
”Oh, Richard, I am glad you have come,” she said. ”I would have killed her if I had not thought of you. I want you to stay; I am always better when you are with me. I have missed you, and I know that baby misses you too.”
He had his cue. He rose, trembling a little. ”Come, come,” he said heartily, ”it's all right, it's all right-my sister. Let us go and see the youngster. There, dry your eyes, and forget all about that woman.
She is only envious of you. Come, for his imperial highness!”
She was in a tumult of feeling. It was seldom that she had shown emotion in the past two years, and it was the more ample when it did break forth. But she dried her eyes, and together they went to the nursery.
She dismissed the nurse and they were left alone by the sleeping child. She knelt at the head of the little cot, and touched the child's forehead with her lips. He stooped down also beside it.
”He's a grand little fellow,” he said. ”Lali,” he continued presently, ”it is time Frank came home. I am going to write for him. If he does not come at once, I shall go and fetch him.”
”Never! never!” Her eyes flashed angrily. ”Promise that you will not.
Let him come when he is ready.
”He does not, care.” She shuddered a little.
”But he will care when he comes, and you--you care for him, Lali?”
Again she shuddered, and a whiteness ran under the hot excitement of her cheeks. She said nothing, but looked up at him, then dropped her face in her hands.
”You do care for him, Lali,” he said earnestly, almost solemnly, his lips twitching slightly. ”You must care for him; it is his right; and he will--I swear to you I know he will--care for you.”
In his own mind there was another thought, a hard, strange thought; and it had to do with the possibility of his brother not caring for this wife.
Still she did not speak.
”To a good woman, with a good husband,” he continued, ”there is no one--there should be no one--like the father of her child. And no woman ever loved her child more than you do yours.” He knew that this was special pleading.
She trembled, and then dropped her cheek beside the child's. ”I want Frank to be happy,” he went on; ”there is no one I care more for than for Frank.”
She lifted her face to him now, in it a strange light. Then her look ran to confusion, and she seemed to read all that he meant to convey. He knew she did. He touched her shoulder.
”You must do the best you can every way, for Frank's sake, for all our sakes. I will help you--G.o.d knows I will--all I can.”
”Ah, yes, yes,” she whispered, from the child's pillow.
He could see the flame in her cheek. ”I understand.” She put out her hand to him, but did not look up. ”Leave me alone with my baby, Richard,” she pleaded.
He took her hand and pressed it again and again in his old, unconscious way. Then he let it go, and went slowly to the door. There he turned and looked back at her. He mastered the hot thought in him. ”G.o.d help me!” she murmured from the cot. The next morning Richard went back to Greyhope.
CHAPTER VII. A COURT-MARTIAL
It was hard to tell, save for a certain deliberateness of speech and a colour a little more p.r.o.nounced than that of a Spanish woman, that Mrs.