Part 29 (1/2)

He was not sure yet in which of the four divisions he should have to place his new attraction--probably the second--but he frankly admitted he had never before had any experience with one of her type. Her strange eyes thrilled him: he felt, when she turned the deep slate, melting disks upon him, his heart went ”down into his bloomin' boots,” as Jimmy Danvers would have described the sensation. So he began with extreme gentleness and care.

”You have not been long in this country, Lady Tancred, have you? One can see it--you are so exquisitely _chic_. And how perfectly you speak Englis.h.!.+ Not the slightest accent. It is delicious. Did you learn it when very young?”

”My father was an Englishman,” said Zara, disarmed from her usual chilling reserve by the sympathy in his voice. ”I always spoke it until I was thirteen, and since then, too. It is a nice, honest language, I think.”

”You speak numbers of others, probably?” Lord Elterton went on, admiringly.

”Yes, about four or five. It is very easy when one is moving in the countries, and certain languages are very much alike. Russian is the most difficult.”

”How clever you are!”

”No, I am not a bit. But I have had time to read a good deal--” and then Zara stopped. It was so against her habit to give personal information to any one like this.

Lord Elterton saw the little check, and went on another tack. ”I have been an idle fellow and am not at all learned,” he said. ”Tristram and I were at Eton together in the same house, and we were both dunces; but he did rather well at Oxford, and I went straight into the Guards.”

Zara longed to ask about Tristram. She had not even heard before that he had been to Oxford! And it struck her suddenly how ridiculous the whole thing was. She had sold herself for a bargain; she had asked no questions of any one; she had intended to despise the whole family and remain entirely aloof; and now she found every one of her intentions being gradually upset. But as yet she did not admit for a second to herself that she was falling in love. It would be such a perfectly impossible thing to do in any case, when now he was absolutely indifferent to her and showed it in every way. It made the whole thing all the more revolting--to have pretended he loved her on that first night! Yes, with certain modifications of cla.s.ses and races men were all perfectly untrustworthy, if not brutes, and a woman, if she could relax her vigilance, as regards the defense of her person and virtue, could not afford to unbend a fraction as to her emotions!

And all the time she was thinking this out she was silent, and Lord Elterton watched her, thrilled with the attraction of the un.o.btainable.

He saw plainly she had forgotten his very presence, and, though piqued, he grew the more eager.

”I would love to know what you were thinking of,” he said softly; and then with great care he pulled a bramble aside so that it should not touch her. They had turned into a lane beyond the kitchen garden and the park.

Zara started. She had, indeed, been far away!

”I was thinking--” she said, and then she paused for a suitable lie but none came, so she grew confused, and stopped, and hesitated, and then she blurted out, ”I was thinking was it possible there could ever be any one whom one could believe?”

Lord Elterton looked at her. What a strange woman!

”Yes,” he said simply, ”you can believe me when I tell you I have never been so attracted by any one in my life.”

”Oh! for that!” she answered contemptuously. _”Mon Dieu!_ how often I have heard of that!”

This was not what he had expected. There was no empty boast about the speech, as there would have been if Laura Highford had uttered it--she was fond of demonstrating her conquests and power in words. There was only a weariness as of something ba.n.a.l and tiring. He must be more careful.

”Yes, I quite understand,” he said sympathetically. ”You must be bored with the love of men.”

”I have never seen any love of men. Do men know love?” she asked, not with any bitterness--only as a question of fact. What had Tristram been about? Lord Elterton thought. Here he had been married to this divine creature for a whole week, and she was plainly asking the question from her heart. And Tristram was no fool in a general way, he knew. There was some mystery here, but whatever it was there was the more chance for him! So he went on very tactfully, trying insidiously to soothe her, so that at last when they had arrived Zara had enjoyed her walk.

Montfitchet Tower was all that remained of the old castle destroyed by Cromwell's Ironsides. It was just one large, square room, a sort of great hall. It had stood roofless for many years and then been covered in by the old Duke's father, and contained a splendid stone chimney piece of colossal proportions. It had also been floored, and had the raised place still, where the family had eaten ”above the salt.” The rest of the old castle was a complete ruin, and at the Restoration the new one had been rebuilt about a mile further up the park.

Lady Ethelrida had collected several pieces of rough oak furniture to put into this great room which in height reached three stories up, and the supports of the mantelpieces of the upper floors could be seen on the blackened stone walls. It was here she gave her school treats and tenants' summer dances, because there was a great stretch of green, turfy lawn beyond, down to the river, where they could play their games.

And on a wet day it was an ideal picnic place.

A bright wood fire was already blazing on top of the ashes that for many years had never been cleared out, and a big jack swung in front of it--for appearance sake! What fun every one seemed to be having, Zara thought, as from an oak bench she watched them all busy as bees over their preparations for the repast. She had helped to make a salad, and now sat with the Crow, and surveyed the rest.

Jimmy Danvers had turned up his sleeves and was thoroughly in earnest over his part; and he and Young Billy had gathered some brown bracken, and put it sprouting from a ham, to represent, they said, the peac.o.c.k.

For, they explained, a banquet in a baronial hall had to have a peac.o.c.k, as well as a boar's head, and an ox roasted whole!

And suddenly Zara thought of her last picnic, with Mimo and Mirko in the Neville Street attic, when the poor little one had worn the paper cap, and had taken such pleasure in the new rosy cups. And the Crow who was watching her closely, wondered why this gay scene should make the lovely bride look so pitifully sad. ”How _Maman_ would have loved all this!”