Part 48 (2/2)

”O! but,” simpered Mrs Marter, ”do you think we can't tell when you are sincere?”

”Bai Jove, no!” said Max earnestly, and with a wonderful deal of truth.

”But look here: I've got tickets for Her Majesty's to-night--three, you know--for _La Figlia_. You'll go, of course, Marter?”

”Go to an opera!” said Mr Marter, with a shake of the head. ”I never go to operas--I only go to sleep.”

”O, bai Jove! that's too bad!” cried Max. ”You've never been with us anywhere yet; and I do think you ought to go for once in a way.”

”No, I sha'n't go!” said Mr Marter; ”and besides, I have promised to dine out. Take Miss Bedford.”

”Bother Miss Bedford! Bai Jove, one can't stir without your governess.

I say, Marter, do go!”

”Can't, I tell you; and, besides, I shouldn't go, if I had no engagement,” said Mr Marter testily. ”You three can go if you like.”

Max Bray seemed rather put out by the refusal, and for a time it almost appeared as if he were about to throw the stall tickets behind the fire; but by degrees he cooled down, and after it had been decided that he was to call for the ladies about half-past seven, he rose to leave.

”But why not have an early dinner here?” said Mr Marter.

”No, bai Jove, no!” said Max. ”I'm always here; and besides, I've some business to attend to. Till half-past seven, then--_au revoir_.”

Max kissed the tips of his gloves to Mrs Marter as he left the room; and soon after he was being driven to his chambers, where he wrote a long letter to Laura, sent it by special messenger, and then sat impatiently waiting for an answer, gnawing his nails the while.

The reply came at last, very short and enigmatical, but it was sufficient to make him draw a long breath, as if of satisfaction, though the words were only--

”_Yes! No more; for we are going out_.”

Then Max Bray lit a cigar, and sat thinking over the events of the past few days, and of what he had done. He had been several times to the Marters'; he had run down, on the previous day, to Lexville; and a couple of days before that he had posted a letter, the reply to which he now anxiously awaited.

What time would it come? He kept referring to his watch, and then he went over and over again the arrangements for some project he evidently had in view, before sauntering off to his club and dining; when, to his great delight, upon his returning to dress for the evening's engagement, he found a couple of letters awaiting him, one of which he tore open, and then threw into the fire with an impatient ”Pis.h.!.+” the other he took up and examined carefully, reading the several postmarks, and then, smiling as he glanced at the round legal writing, placed it unopened in his breast-pocket.

There was a strange exultant look in Max Bray's eye as he drew on his white-kid gloves that evening, and started for the residence of Mrs Saint Clair Marter, where he found the ladies ready, and did not scruple to behave almost rudely to Ella as he prepared to take them down, hardly condescending to speak to her; but as the evening wore on, and they were seated in front of the orchestra, he condescended to make to her a few remarks, more than one of which drew forth a smile, from their satirical nature, as, evidently in a bitter spirit, he drew attention to the various eccentricities of dress in their neighbourhood.

Max Bray did not know, though, that within a few yards sat the man whom he had again and again maligned; neither did Ella Bedford divine that a pair of blood-shot eyes were gazing upon her almost fiercely, as she turned from time to time to respond to the remarks of Max, who talked on, till, towards the end of the opera, he stood up to direct his opera-gla.s.s here and there, for indulgence in that graceful, truly refined, nineteenth-century act, so much in vogue at the higher-cla.s.s places of entertainment.

He had tried in three or four different directions; but, perhaps from being in a satirical mood, he did not see a single face to attract his attention, till, concluding with a grand sweep of the best tier, he suddenly stopped short, kept the gla.s.s tightly to his eyes, whisked round swiftly, and sat down; for the field of the gla.s.s had for the moment been filled by the figures of Mrs Bray and Sir Philip Vining.

”Bai Jove!” muttered Max to himself; and had Charley Vining and Laura been there all the evening, close behind him? They must have been, and be sitting now at the back of the private box. Bai Jove! what should he do? It was horrible to have gone so far--so near--and then to have all spoiled! What an a.s.s he must have been! Laura had said that they were going out; but who would have thought that they were coming here?

Max sat rigidly still for the rest of the evening, encouraging Mrs Marter to stay through the ballet; and at last, cautiously peering round, he found, to his great satisfaction, that the private box occupied by the Brays was empty.

Ella had not seen who was so near, for she was calm and unmoved.

”Bai Jove, what an escape!” thought Max; and a cold chill ran through him--one that would have been more icy, had he known how close they had been to a _rencontre_. But there was still another peril--Charley Vining might be waiting yet, and she would see him!

They reached the fly, however, uninterrupted, and Max Bray's spirits rose; but, though he stayed to a late meal--half-tea, half-supper--at Crescent Villas, he was more distant than ever in his behaviour to Ella--so distant, indeed, that Mrs Marter was half-disposed to ask him if Miss Bedford had given him any offence.

It was past one when Max departed; and, hardly knowing why, Ella went to her bed that night tearful and sad, little thinking that it was a pillow she would never again press.

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