Part 44 (2/2)

”You mean he was sorry that I wasn't there sooner--with my father?”

”I think that was what he felt--that there was only a stranger.”

”I was just in time,” said Falloden slowly. ”And I wonder--whether anything matters, to the dying?”

There was a pause, after which he added, with sudden energy--

”I thought--at the inquest--he himself looked pretty bad.”

”Otto Radowitz?” Constance covered her eyes with her hands a moment--a gesture of pain. ”Mr. Sorell doesn't know what to do for him. He has been losing ground lately. The doctors say he ought to live in the open-air. He and Mr. Sorell talk of a cottage near Oxford, where Mr.

Sorell can go often and see him. But he can't live alone.”

As she spoke Falloden's attention was diverted. He had raised his head and was looking across the lawn towards the garden entrance. There was the sound of a clicking latch. Constance turned, and saw Radowitz entering.

The young musician paused and wavered, at the sight of the two under the lime. It seemed as though he would have taken to flight. But, instead, he came on with hesitating step. He had taken off his hat, as he often did when walking; and his red-gold hair _en brosse_ was as conspicuous as ever. But otherwise what a change from the youth of three months before! Falloden, now that the immediate pressure of his own tragedy was relaxed, perceived the change even more sharply than he had done at the inquest; perceived it, at first with horror, and then with a wild sense of recoil and denial, as though some hovering Erinys advanced with Radowitz over the leaf-strewn gra.s.s.

Radowitz grew paler still as he reached Connie. He gave Falloden a short, embarra.s.sed greeting, and then subsided into the chair that Constance offered him. The thought crossed Falloden's mind--”Did she arrange this?”

Her face gave little clue--though she could not restrain one quick, hesitating glance at Falloden. She pressed tea on Radowitz, who accepted it to please her, and then, schooled as she was in all the minor social arts, she had soon succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng a sort of small talk among the three. Falloden, self-conscious, and on the rack, could not imagine why he stayed. But this languid boy had ministered to his dying father!

And to what, and to whom, were the languor, the tragic physical change due? He stayed--in purgatory--looking out for any chance to escape.

”Did you walk all the way?”

The note in Connie's voice was softly reproachful.

”Why, it's only three miles!” said Radowitz, as though defending himself, but he spoke with an accent of depression. And Connie remembered how, in the early days of his recovery from his injury, he had spent hours rambling over the moors by himself, or with Sorell. Her heart yearned to him. She would have liked to take his poor hands in hers, and talk to him tenderly like a sister. But there was that other dark face, and those other eyes opposite--watching. And to them too, her young sympathy went out--how differently!--how pa.s.sionately! A kind of rending and widening process seemed to be going on within her own nature. Veils were falling between her and life; and feelings, deeper and stronger than any she had ever known, were fast developing the woman in the girl. How to heal Radowitz!--how to comfort Falloden! Her mind ached under the feelings that filled it--feelings wholly disinterested and pure.

”You really are taking the Boar's Hill cottage?” she asked, addressing Radowitz.

”I think so. It is nearly settled. But I am trying to find some companion. Sorell can only come occasionally.”

As he spoke, a wild idea flashed into Falloden's brain. It seemed to have entered without--or against--his will; as though suggested by some imperious agency outside himself. His intelligence laughed at it.

Something else in him entertained it--breathlessly.

Radowitz stooped down to try and tempt Lady Marcia's dachshund with a piece of cake.

”I must anyhow have a dog,” he said, as the pampered Max accepted the cake, and laid his head gratefully on the donor's knee; ”they're always company.”

He looked wistfully into the dog's large, friendly eyes.

Connie rose.

”Please don't move!” she said, flus.h.i.+ng. ”I shall be back directly. But I must put up a letter. I hear the postman!” She ran over the gra.s.s, leaving the two men in acute discomfort. Falloden thought again, with rising excitement: ”She planned it! She wants me to do something--to take some step--but what?”

An awkward pause followed. Radowitz was still playing with the dog, caressing its beautiful head with his uninjured hand, and talking to it in a half whisper. As Constance departed, a bright and feverish red had rushed into his cheeks; but it had only made his aspect more ghostly, more unreal.

<script>