Volume I Part 34 (2/2)

”Old ghoul!” said Naseby, in disgust. ”So she knows. And yet--good Heavens! where does that charming girl come from?”

He knocked the end off his cigarette, and returned it to his mouth with a rather unsteady hand.

”Knows?--knows what?” said Betty. There was a pink flush, perhaps of alarm, on her pretty cheek, but her eyes said plainly that if there were risks she must run them.

Naseby hesitated. The natural reticence of one young man about another held him back--and he was Ancoats's friend. But he liked Lady Madeleine, and her mother's ugly manoeuvres in the sight of G.o.ds and men filled him with a restless ill-temper.

”You say the Maxwells have told you nothing?” he said at last. ”But all the same I am pretty certain that Maxwell is here for nothing else. What on earth should he be doing in this _galere_ just now! Look at him and Fontenoy! They've been pacing that lime-walk for a good hour. No one ever saw such a spectacle before. Of course something's up!”

Betty followed his eyes, and caught the figures of the two men between the trunks as they moved through the light and shadow of the lime-walk--Fontenoy's ma.s.sive head sunk in his shoulders, his hands clasped behind his back; Maxwell's taller and alerter form beside him.

Fontenoy had, in fact, arrived that morning from town, just too late to accompany Mrs. Allison and her flock to church; and Maxwell and he had been together since the moment when Ancoats, having brought his guest into the garden, had gone off himself on a walk with Tressady.

”Ancoats and Tressady came back past here,” Naseby went on. ”Ancoats stood still, with his hands on his sides, and looked at those two. His expression was not amiable. 'Something hatching,' he said to Tressady.

I suppose Ancoats got his sneer from his actor-friends--none of us could do it without practice. 'Shall we go and pull the chief out of that?' But they didn't go. Ancoats turned sulky, and went into the house by himself.”

”I'm glad I don't have to keep that youth straight,” said Betty, devoutly. ”Perhaps I don't care enough about him to try. But his mother's a darling saint!--and if he breaks her heart he ought to be hung.”

”She knows nothing--I believe--” said Naseby, quickly.

”Strange!” cried Betty. ”I wonder if it pays to be a saint. I shall know everything about _my_ boy when he's that age.”

”Oh! will you?” said Naseby, looking at her with a mocking eye.

”Yes, sir, I shall. Your secrets are not so difficult to know, if one _wants_ to know them. Heaven forbid, however, that I should want to know anything about any of you till Bertie is grown up! Now, please tell me everything. Who is the lady?”

”Heaven forbid I should tell you!” said Naseby, drily.

”Don't trifle any more,” said Betty, laying a remonstrating hand on his arm; ”they will be home from church directly.”

”Well, I won't tell you any names,” said Naseby, reluctantly. ”Of course, it's an actress--a very small one. And, of course, she's a bad lot--and pretty.”

”Why, there's no of course about it--about either of them!” said Betty, with more indignation than grammar. She also had dramatic friends, and was sensitive on the point.

Naseby protested that if he must argue the ethics of the stage before he told his tale, the tale would remain untold. Then Betty, subdued, fell into an att.i.tude of meek listening, hands on lap. The tale when told indeed proved to be a very ordinary affair, marked out perhaps a trifle from the ruck by the facts that there was another pretender in the field with whom Ancoats had already had one scene in public, and would probably have more; that Ancoats being Ancoats, something mad and conspicuous was to be expected, which would bring the matter inevitably to his mother's ears; and that Mrs. Allison was Mrs. Allison.

”Can he marry her?” said Betty, quickly.

”Thank Heaven! no. There is a husband somewhere in Chili. So that it doesn't seem to be a question of driving Mrs. Allison out of Castle Luton. But--well, between ourselves, it would be a pity to give Ancoats so fine a chance of going to the bad, as he'll get, if this young woman lays hold of him. He mightn't recover it.”

Betty sat silent a moment. All her gaiety had pa.s.sed away. There was a fierceness in her blue eyes.

”And that's what we bring them up for!” she exclaimed at last--”that they may do all these ugly, stale, stupid things over again. Oh! I'm not thinking so much, of the morals!”--she turned to Naseby with a defiant look. ”I am thinking of the hateful cruelty and unkindness!”

”To his mother?” said Naseby. He shrugged his shoulders.

Betty allowed herself an outburst. Her little hand trembled on her knee.

Naseby did not reply. Not that he disagreed; far from it. Under his young and careless manner he was already a person of settled character, cheris.h.i.+ng a number of strong convictions. But since it had become the fas.h.i.+on to talk as frankly of a matter of this kind to your married-women friends as to anybody else, he thought that the women should take it with more equanimity.

<script>