Part 4 (1/2)
He had intended pa.s.sing the day at Alverholme, and, on the morrow, travelling to Hollingford. Now he felt no inclination to hazard a call upon Lady Ogram; he would return to London forthwith.
”No bad news, I hope?” said his father, when this purpose was announced.
”Mrs. Woolstan wants me back sooner than I expected, that's all.”
His mother's lips curled disdainfully. To be at the beck and call of a Mrs. Woolstan, seemed to her an ign.o.ble thing. However, she had learnt the tenor of Dyce's discourse of the evening before, and tried once more to see a radiance in his future.
CHAPTER III
Hair the hue of an autumn elm-leaf; eyes green or blue, as the light fell upon them; a long, thin face, faintly freckled over its creamy pallor, with narrow arch of eyebrow, indifferent nose, childlike lips and a small, pointed chin;--thus may one suggest the portrait of Iris Woolstan. When Dyce Lashmar stepped into her drawing-room, she had the air of one who has been impatiently expectant. Her eyes widened in a smile of nervous pleasure; she sprang up, and offered her hand before the visitor was near enough to take it.
”So kind of you to come! I was half afraid you might have gone out of town not that it would have mattered. I did really want to see you as soon as possible, but Monday would have done just as well.”
She spoke rapidly in a high, but not shrill, voice, with a drawing-in of the breath before and after her speech, and a nervous little pant between the sentences, her bosom fluttering like that of a frightened bird.
”As a matter of fact,” cried Lashmar, with brusque cordiality, dropping into a chair before his hostess was seated, ”I _had_ gone out of town.
I got your letter at Alverholme, and came back again sooner than I intended.”
”Oh! Oh!” panted Mrs. Woolstan, on her highest note, ”I shall never forgive myself! Why _didn't_ you telegraph--or just do nothing at all, and come when you were ready? Oh! When there wasn't the least hurry.”
”Then why did you write as if something alarming had happened?” cried the other, laughing, as he crossed his legs, and laid his silk hat aside.
”Oh, did I? I'm sure I _didn't_ mean to. There's nothing alarming at all--at least--that is to say--well, it's something troublesome and disagreeable and very unexpected, and I'm rather afraid you won't like it. But we've plenty of time to talk about it. I'm at home to n.o.body else--It was really unkind of you to come back in a hurry! Besides, it's against your principles. You wouldn't have done that if I had been a man.”
”A man would have said just what he meant,” replied Dyce, smiling at her with kindly superiority. ”He wouldn't have put me in doubt.”
”No, no! But did I really write like that? I thought it was just a plain little business-like note--indeed I did! It will be a lesson to me--indeed it will! And how did you find your people? All well, I hope?”
”Well in one way; in another--but I'll tell you about that presently.”
Dyce had known Mrs. Woolstan for about a couple of years; it was in the second twelvemonth of their acquaintance that he matured his method with regard to women, and since then he had not only practised it freely, but had often discussed it, with her. Iris gave the method her entire approval, and hailed it as the beginning of a new era for her s.e.x. She imagined that her own demeanour was no less direct and unconstrained than that of the philosopher himself; in reality, the difference was considerable. Though several years older than Dyce--her age being thirty-four--she showed nothing of the seniority in her manner towards him, which, for all its impulsiveness, had a noticeable deference, at moments something of subdued homage.
”You don't mean to say you have bad news?” she exclaimed, palpitating.
”You, too?”
”Why, then _you_ have something of the same kind to tell me?” said Dyce, gazing at her anxiously.
”Tell me your's first--please do!”
”No. It's nothing very important. So say what you've got to say, and be quick about it--come!”
Mrs. Woolstan's bosom rose and fell rapidly as she collected her thoughts. Unconventional as were the terms in which Lashmar addressed her, they carried no suggestion of an intimacy which pa.s.sed the limits of friends.h.i.+p. When his eyes turned to her, their look was unemotional, purely speculative, and in general spoke without looking at her at all.
”It's something about Mr. Wrybolt,” Iris began, with a face of distress. ”You know he is my trustee--I told you, didn't I? I see him very seldom, and we don't take much interest in each other; he's nothing but a man of business, the kind I detest; he can't talk of anything but money and shares and wretched things of that sort. But you know him you understand.”
The name of Wrybolt set before Dyce's mind a middle-aged man, red-necked, heavy of eyelid, with a rather punctilious hearing and authoritative mode of speech. They had met only once, here at Mrs.
Woolstan's house.
”I'm sure I don't know why, but just lately he's begun to make inquiries about Len, and to ask when I meant to send him to school. Of course I told him that Len was doing very well indeed, and that I didn't see the slightest necessity for making a change at all events just yet. Well, yesterday he came, and said he wanted to see the boy.