Part 16 (2/2)
”Of course not. I was an idiot to imagine that you would care enough to come, even if you had known.”
”I do not know,” he remarked, ”why you should say that. On the contrary----”
She interrupted him.
”Oh! I know what you are going to say. I ran away from Mrs. Selby's nice rooms, and never thanked you for your kindness. I didn't even leave a message for you, did I? Well, never mind; you know why, I daresay.”
Wolfenden thought that he did, but he evaded a direct answer.
”What I cannot understand,” he said, ”is why you are here.”
”It is my new situation,” she answered. ”I was bound to look for one, you know. There is nothing strange about it. I advertised for a situation, and I got this one.”
He was silent. There were things in connection with this which he scarcely understood. She watched him with a mocking smile parting her lips.
”It is a good deal harder to understand,” she said, ”why you are here. This is the very last house in the world in which I should have thought of seeing you.”
”Why?” he asked quickly.
She shrugged her shoulders; her speech had been scarcely a discreet one.
”I should not have imagined,” she said, ”that Mr. Sabin would have come within the circle of your friends.”
”I do not know why he should not,” Wolfenden said. ”I consider him a very interesting man.”
She smiled upon him.
”Yes, he is interesting,” she said; ”only I should not have thought that your tastes were at all identical.”
”You seem to know a good deal about him,” Wolfenden remarked quietly.
For a moment an odd light gleamed in her eyes; she was very pale. Wolfenden moved towards her.
”Blanche,” he said, ”has anything gone wrong with you? You don't look well.”
She withdrew her hands from her face.
”There is nothing wrong with me,” she said. ”Hus.h.!.+ he is coming.”
She swung round in her seat, and the quick clicking of the instrument was resumed as her fingers flew over it. The door opened, and Mr. Sabin entered. He leaned on his stick, standing on the threshold, and glanced keenly at both of them.
”My dear Lord Wolfenden,” he said apologetically, ”this is the worst of having country servants. Fancy showing you in here. Come and join us in the other room; we are just going to have our coffee.”
Wolfenden followed him with alacrity; they crossed the little hall and entered the dining-room. Helene was still sitting there sipping her coffee in an easy chair. She welcomed him with outstretched hand and a brilliantly soft smile. Mr. Sabin, who was watching her closely, appreciated, perhaps for the first time, her rare womanly beauty, apart from its distinctly patrician qualities. There was a change, and he was not the man to be blind to it or to under-rate its significance. He felt that on the eve of victory he had another and an unexpected battle to fight; yet he held himself like a brave man and one used to reverses, for he showed no signs of dismay.
”I want you to try a gla.s.s of this claret, Lord Wolfenden,” he said, ”before you begin your coffee. I know that you are a judge, and I am rather proud of it. You are not going away, Helene?”
”I had no idea of going,” she laughed. ”This is really the only habitable room in the house, and I am not going to let Lord Wolfenden send me to s.h.i.+ver in what we call the drawing-room.”
”I should be very sorry if you thought of such a thing,” Wolfenden answered.
”If you will excuse me for a moment,” Mr. Sabin said, ”I will unpack some cigarettes. Helene, will you see that Lord Wolfenden has which liqueur he prefers?”
He limped away, and Helene watched him leave the room with some surprise. These were tactics which she did not understand. Was he already making up his mind that the game could be played without her? She was puzzled--a little uneasy.
She turned to find Wolfenden's admiring eyes fixed upon her; she looked at him with a smile, half-sad, half-humorous.
”Let me remember,” she said, ”I am to see that you have--what was it? Oh! liqueurs. We haven't much choice; you will find k.u.mmel and Chartreuse on the sideboard, and Benedictine, which my uncle hates, by the bye, at your elbow.”
”No liqueurs, thanks,” he said. ”I wonder, did you expect me to-night? I don't think that I ought to have come, ought I?”
”Well, you certainly show,” she answered with a smile, ”a remarkable disregard for all precedents and conventions. You ought to be already on your way to foreign parts with your guns and servants. It is Englishmen, is it not, who go always to the Rocky Mountains to shoot bears when their love affairs go wrong?”
He was watching her closely, and he saw that she was less at her ease than she would have had him believe. He saw, too, or fancied that he saw, a softening in her face, a kindliness gleaming out of her l.u.s.trous eyes which suggested new things to him.
”The Rocky Mountains,” he said slowly, ”mean despair. A man does not go so far whilst he has hope.”
She did not answer him; he gathered courage from her silence.
”Perhaps,” he said, ”I might now have been on my way there but for a somewhat sanguine disposition--a very strong determination, and,” he added more softly, ”a very intense love.”
”It takes,” she remarked, ”a very great deal to discourage an Englishman.”
”Speaking for myself,” he answered, ”I defy discouragement; I am proof against it. I love you so dearly, Helene, that I simply decline to give you up; I warn you that I am not a lover to be shaken off.”
His voice was very tender; his words sounded to her simple but strong. He was so sure of himself and his love. Truly, she thought, for an Englishman this was no indifferent wooer; his confidence thrilled her; she felt her heart beat quickly under its sheath of drooping black lace and roses.
”I am giving you,” she said quietly, ”no hope. Remember that; but I do not want you to go away.”
The hope which her tongue so steadfastly refused to speak he gathered from her eyes, her face, from that indefinable softening which seems to pervade at the moment of yielding a woman's very personality. He was wonderfully happy, although he had the wit to keep it to himself.
”You need not fear,” he whispered, ”I shall not go away.”
Outside they heard the sound of Mr. Sabin's stick. She leaned over towards him.
”I want you,” she said, ”to--kiss me.”
His heart gave a great leap, but he controlled himself. Intuitively he knew how much was permitted to him; he seemed to have even some faint perception of the cause for her strange request. He bent over and took her face for a moment between his hands; her lips touched his--she had kissed him!
He stood away from her, breathless with the excitement of the moment. The perfume of her hair, the soft touch of her lips, the gentle movement with which she had thrust him away, these things were like the drinking of strong wine to him. Her own cheeks were scarlet; outside the sound of Mr. Sabin's stick grew more and more distinct; she smoothed her hair and laughed softly up at him.
”At least,” she murmured, ”there is that to remember always.”
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