Volume I Part 14 (1/2)

”When do you speak?”

The question fell out abruptly, and took George by surprise.

”I? On Monday, I believe, if I get my turn. But I fear the British Empire will go on if I don't!”

She threw a glance of scrutiny at his thin, whimsical face, with its fair moustache and sunburnt skin.

”I hear you are a good speaker,” she said simply. ”And you are entirely with Lord Fontenoy?”

He bowed lightly, his hands on his sides.

”You'll agree our case was well put? The worst of it--”

Then he stopped. He saw that Lady Maxwell had ceased to listen to him.

She turned her head towards the door, and, without even saying good-bye to him, she hurried away from him towards the further end of the room.

”Maxwell, I see!” said Tressady to himself, with a shrug, as he returned to his seat. ”Not flattering--but rather pretty, all the same!”

He was thinking of the quick change that had remade the face while he was talking to her--a change as lovely as it was unconscious.

Lord Maxwell, indeed, had just entered the dining-room in search of his wife, and he and she now left it together, while the rest of the Leven party gradually dispersed. Letty also announced that she must go home.

”Let me just go back into the House and see what is going on,” said George. ”Ten to one I sha'n't be wanted, and I could see you home.”

He hurried off, only to return in a minute with the news that the debate was given up to a succession of superfluous people, and he was free, at any rate for an hour. Letty, Miss Tulloch, and he accordingly made their way to Palace Yard. A bright moon shone in their faces as they emerged into the open air, which was still mild and spring-like, as it had been all the week.

”I say--send Miss Tulloch home in a cab!” George pleaded in Letty's ear, ”and walk with me a bit. Come and look at the moon over the river. I will bring you back to the bridge and put you in a cab.”

Letty looked astonished and demure. ”Aunt Charlotte would be shocked,” she said.

George grew impatient, and Letty, pleased with his impatience, at last yielded. Tully, the most complaisant of chaperons, was put into a hansom and despatched.

As the pair reached the entrance of Palace Yard they were overtaken by a brougham, which drew up an instant in the gateway itself, till it should find an opening in the traffic outside.

”Look!” said George, pressing Letty's arm.

She looked round hurriedly, and, as the lamps of the gateway shone into the carriage, she caught a vivid glimpse of the people inside it. Their faces were turned towards each other as though in intimate conversation--that was all. The lady's hands were crossed on her knee; the man held a despatch-box. In a minute they were gone; but both Letty and George were left with the same impression--the sense of something exquisite surprised. It had already visited George that evening, only a few minutes earlier, in connection with the same woman's face.

Letty laughed, rather consciously.

George looked down upon her as he guided her through the gate.

”Some people seem to find it pleasant to be together!” he said, with a vibration in his voice. ”But why did we look?” he added, discontentedly.

”How could we help it, you silly boy?”

They walked to wards the bridge and down the steps, happy in each other, and freshened by the night breeze. Over the river the moon, hung full and white, and beneath it everything--the silver tracks on the water, the blaze of light at Charing Cross Station, the lamps on Westminster Bridge and in the pa.s.sing steamers, a train of barges, even the darkness of the Surrey sh.o.r.e--had a gentle and poetic air. The vast city had, as it were, veiled her greatness and her tragedy; she offered herself kindly and protectingly to these two--to their happiness and their youth.

George made his companion wait beside the parapet and look, while he himself drew in the air with a sort of hunger.