Part 13 (2/2)

She began, in woman's quiet but penetrating way, to look about her. She met many young men in the world, in fact nearly all the young eligible men of the time. Many of them came to her house, for she often gave parties to which she asked not only the ”old guard” and the well-known men of the day, but also the young married women. Now she began to give small dances to which she asked pretty young girls. There was a ballroom built out at the back of her house. It was often in use. The pretty young girls began to say she was ”a dear” to bother so much about them.

Dancing men voted her a thundering good hostess and a most good-natured woman. In popularity she almost cut out the d.u.c.h.ess of Wellingborough, who sometimes gave dances, too, for young people.

Really through it all she was on the watch, was seeking the possible husband.

Presently she found the man with whom she could imagine being almost desperately happy if he would only fall in with her hidden views. They were so carefully hidden that not one of her friends, not one of the ”old guard,” suspected that she had made up her mind to marry again and to make what is universally called ”a foolish marriage.”

His name was Rupert Louth, and he was the fourth son of an impecunious but delightful peer, Lord Blyston. He was close upon thirty, and had spent the greater part of his time, since his twentieth year, out of England. He had ranched in Canada, and had also done something vague of the outdoor kind in Texas. He had fought, and was a good man of his hands. His health was splendid. He was as hard as nails in condition, and as lively and ready as they make them. Many things he could do, but one thing he had never been able to do. He had never been able to make money. His gift lay rather in the direction of joyously spending it.

This gift distracted his father, who confided to Lady Sellingworth his fears for the lad's--he would insist on calling Rupert the lad--for the lad's future. Here he was back on the family's hands with expensive tastes and no prospects whatever!

”And he's always after the women, too!” said Lord Blyston, with admiring despair. ”He's been away from them so long there's no holding him.”

After a pause he added:

”My dear Adela, if you want to do me a good turn find the lad a wife.

His poor mother's gone, or she would have done it. What he wants is a wife who can manage him, with a decent amount of money.”

Without exactly saying so, Lady Sellingworth implied that she would see what she could do for Rupert.

From that moment Lord Blyston pushed ”the lad” perpetually towards 18A Berkeley Square.

Rupert Louth was fair and very good-looking, reckless and full of go.

And wherever he went he carried with him an outdoor atmosphere. He cared nothing for books, music, or intellectual pursuits. Nevertheless, he was at home everywhere, and quite as much at ease in a woman's drawing-room as rounding up cattle in Canada or la.s.sooing wild horses in Texas. He lived entirely and wholeheartedly for the day, and was a magnificent specimen of das.h.i.+ng animal life; for certainly the animal predominated in him.

Lady Sellingworth fell in love with him--it really was like falling in love each time--and resolved to marry him. A wonderful breath of manhood and youth exhaled from ”the lad” and almost intoxicated her. It called to her wildness. It brought back to her the days when she had been a magnificent girl, had shot over the moors, and had more than held her own in the hunting field. After she had married Lord Sellingworth she had given up shooting and hunting, had devoted herself more keenly to the arts, to mental and purely social pursuits, to the opera, the forming of a salon, to politics and to entertaining, than to the physical pleasures which had formerly played such a prominent part in her life. Since his death she had put down her horses. But now she began to change her mode of living. She went with Rupert to Tattersalls, and they picked up some good horses together. She began riding again, and lent him a mount. She was perpetually at Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and developed a pa.s.sion for polo, which he played remarkably well. She played lawn tennis at King's Club in the morning, and renewed her energy at golf.

Louth was really struck by her activity and competence, and said of her that she was a d.a.m.ned good sport and as active as a cat. He also said that there wasn't a country in the world that bred such wonderful old women as England. This remark he made to his father, who rejoined that Adela Sellingworth was not an old woman.

”Well, she must be near fifty!” said his son. ”And if that isn't old for a woman where are we to look for it?”

Lord Blyston replied that there were many women far older than Adela Sellingworth, to which his son answered:

”Anyhow, she's as active as a cat, so why don't you marry her?”

”She's twenty years too young for me,” said Lord Blyston. ”I should bore her to death.”

It had just occurred to him that Rupert could be very comfortable on Lord Sellingworth's and Lord Manham's combined fortunes, though he had no idea that Lady Sellingworth had ever thought of ”the lad” as a possible husband.

Other people, however, noticed the new development in her life.

Every morning quite early she was to be seen, perfectly mounted, cantering in the Row, often with Rupert Louth beside her. Her extraordinary interest in every branch of athletics was generally remarked. She even went to boxing matches, and was persuaded to give away prizes at a big meeting at Stamford Bridge.

Although she never said a word about it to anyone, this sudden outburst of intense bodily activity at her age presently began to tire, then almost to exhaust her. The strain upon her was great, too great.

Whatever Rupert Louth did, he never turned a hair. But she was nearly twenty years older than he was, and decidedly out of training. She fought desperately against her physical fatigue, and showed a gay face to the world. But a horrible conviction possessed her. She began presently to feel certain that her effort to live up to Rupert Louth's health and vigour was hastening the aging process in her body. By what she was doing she was marring her chance of preserving into old age the appearance of comparative youth. Sometimes at night, when all the activities of the day were over and there was no prospect of seeing Rupert again until, at earliest, the following morning, she felt absolutely haggard with weariness of body--felt as she said to herself with a shudder, like an old hag. But she could not give up, could not rest, for Rupert expected of everyone who was not definitely laid on the shelf inexhaustible energy, tireless vitality. His own perpetual freshness was a marvel, and fascinated Lady Sellingworth. To be with him was like being with eternal youth, and made her long for her own lost youth with an ache of desperation. But to act being young is hideously different from being actually young. She acted astonis.h.i.+ngly well, but she paid for every moment of the travesty, and Rupert never noticed, never had the least suspicion of all she was going through on account of him.

To him she was merely a magnificently hospitable pal of his father's, who took a kindly interest in him. He found her capital company. He, like everyone else, felt her easy fascination, enjoyed being with her.

But, like Rocheouart of the past days, he never thought of her as a possible lover. Nor did it ever occur to him that she was thinking of him as a possible husband. He always wanted, and generally managed to have a splendid time; and he was quite willing to be petted and spoilt and made much of; but he was not, under a mask of carelessness, a cold and persistent egoist. He really was just what he seemed to be, a light-hearted, rather uproarious, and very healthy young man, intent on enjoying himself, and recklessly indifferent to the future. He was quite willing to eat Lady Sellingworth's excellent dinners, to ride her spirited horses, to sit in her opera box and look at pretty women while others listened to music, but it never occurred to him that it would be the act of a wise man to try to put her fortune into his own pocket at the price of marrying her.

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