Part 22 (1/2)
Walter Butler turned to her, amazed, doubting his ears.
”A jest,” she continued carelessly, ”to amuse Mr. Renault.”
”Amuse _him_! It is in his own hand!” stammered Butler.
”Apparently. But I wrote it, imitating his hand to plague him. It is indifferently done,” she added, with a shrug. ”I hid it in the cupboard he uses for his love-letters. How came it in your fingers, Mr. Butler?”
In blank astonishment he stood there, the letter half extended, his eyes almost starting from his face. Slowly she moved forward, confronting him, insolent eyes meeting his; and, ere he could guess what she purposed, she had s.n.a.t.c.hed the blotted fragment from him and crushed it in her hand, always eying him until he crimsoned in the focus of her white contempt.
”Go!” she said. Her low voice was pa.s.sionless.
He turned his burning eyes from her to Lady Coleville, to Sir Peter, then bent his gaze on me. What he divined in my face I know not, but the flame leaped in his eyes, and that ghastly smile stretched the muscles of his visage.
”My zeal, it seems, has placed me at a sorry disadvantage,” he said.
”Error piled on error growing from a most unhappy misconstruction of my purposes has changed faith to suspicion, amity to coldness. I know not what to say to clear myself--” He turned his melancholy face to Elsin; all anger had faded from it, and only deepest sadness shadowed the pale brow. ”I ventured to believe, in days gone by, that my devotion was not utterly displeasing--that perhaps the excesses of a stormy and impetuous youth might be condoned in the humble devotion of an honest pa.s.sion----”
The silence was intense. He turned dramatically to Sir Peter, his well-shaped hand opening in graceful salute as he bowed.
”I ask you, sir, to lend a gentle judgment till I clear myself. And of your lady, I humbly beg that mercy also.” Again he bowed profoundly, hand on hilt, a perfect figure of faultless courtesy, graceful, composed, proudly enduring, proudly subduing pride.
Then he slowly raised his dark head and looked at me. ”Mr. Renault,” he said, ”it is my misfortune that our paths have crossed three times. I trust they cross no more, but may run hereafter in pleasant parallel. I was hasty, I was wrong to judge you by what you said concerning the Oneidas. I am impatient, over-sensitive, quick to fire at what I deem an insult to my King. I serve him as my hot blood dictates--and, burning with resentment that you should dare imperil my design, I searched your chamber to destroy the letter you had threatened warning the Oneidas of their coming punishment. How can you blame me if I took this lady's playful jest for something else?”
”I do not blame you, Captain Butler,” I said disdainfully.
”Then may we not resume an intercourse as entertaining as it was full of profit to myself?”
”Time heals--but Time must not be spurred too hard,” I answered, watching him.
His stealthy eyes dropped as he inclined his head in acquiescence.
Then Sir Peter spoke, frankly, impetuously, his good heart dictating ever to his reason; and what he said was amiable and kind, standing there, his sweet lady's arm resting on his own. And she, too, spoke graciously but gravely, with a gentle admonition trailing at the end.
But when he turned to Elsin Grey, she softened nothing, and her gesture committed him to silence while she spoke: ”End now what you have said so well, nor add one word to that delicate pyramid of eloquence which you have raised so high to your own honor, Captain Butler. I am slow-witted and must ask advice from that physician, Time, whom Mr.
Renault, too, has called in council.”
”Am I, then, banished?” he asked below his breath.
”Ask yourself, Mr. Butler. And if you find no reply, then I shall answer you.”
All eyes were on her. What magic metamorphosis had made this woman from a child in a single night! Where had vanished that vague roundness of cheek and chin in this drawn beauty of maturity? that untroubled eye, that indecision of caprice, that charming restlessness, that childish confidence in others, accepting as a creed what grave lips uttered as a guidance to the lesser years that rested lightly on her?
And Walter Butler, too, had noted some of this, perplexed at the reserve, the calm self-confidence, the unimagined strength and cold composure which he had once swayed by his pa.s.sion, as a fair and clean-stemmed sapling tosses in tempests that uproot maturer growth.
His furtive, unconvinced eyes sought the floor as he took his leave with every ceremony due himself and us. Dawn already whitened the east.
He mounted by the tavern window, and I saw him against the pallid sky in silhouette, riding slowly toward the city, Jessop beside him, and their horses' manes whipping the rising sea-wind from the west.
”What a nightmare this has been!” whispered Lady Coleville, her husband's hands imprisoned in her own. And to Elsin: ”Child! what scenes have we dragged you through! Heaven forgive us!--for you have learned a sorry wisdom here concerning men!”
”I have learned,” she said steadily, ”more than you think, madam. Will you forgive me if I ask a word alone with Mr. Renault?”