Part 12 (2/2)

But no,--it was all a delusion! she moved away from him, and the estranging present rushed in again between them.

'It has been M. de Chateauvieux's doing, almost all of it,' she said eagerly, with a change of voice, 'and your sister's. Will you come and see me some time and talk about some of the Paris people? Oh, I am wanted! But first you must be introduced to Macias. Wasn't he good? It was such an excellent choice of Mr. Wallace's. There he is,-and there is his wife, that pretty little dark woman.'

Kendal followed her mechanically, and presently found himself talking nothings to Mr. Harting, who, gorgeous in his Spanish dress, was receiving the congratulations which poured in upon him with a pleasant mixture of good manners and natural elation. A little farther on he stumbled upon Forbes and the Stuarts, Mrs. Stuart as sparkling and fresh as ever, a suggestive contrast in her American crispness and prettiness to the high-bred distinction of Madame de Chateauvieux, who was standing near her.

'Well, my dear fellow,' said Forbes, catching hold of him, 'how is that critical demon of yours? Is he scotched yet?'

'He is almost at his last gasp,' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was never as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How have your pictures got on with all this?'

'I haven't touched a brush since I came back from Switzerland, except to make sketches for this thing. Oh, it's been a terrible business! Mr.

Worrall's hair has turned gray over the expenses of it; however, she and I would have our way, and it's all right--the play will run for twelve months, if she chooses, easily.'

Near by were the Worralls, looking a little sulky, as Kendal fancied, in the midst of this great inrush of the London world, which was sweeping their niece from them into a position of superiority and independence they were not at all prepared to see her take up; Nothing, indeed, could be prettier than her manner to them whenever she came across them, but it was evident that she was no longer an automaton to be moved at their will and pleasure, but a woman and an artist, mistress of herself and of her fate. Kendal fell into conversation on the subject with Mrs. Stuart, who was as communicative and amusing as usual, and who chattered away to him till he suddenly saw Miss Bretherton signalling to him with her arm in that of his sister.

'Do you know, Mr. Kendal,' she said as he went up to her, 'you must really take Madame de Chateauvieux away out of this noise and crowd? It is all very well for her to preach to me. Take her to your rooms and get her some food. How I wish I could entertain you here; but with this crowd it is impossible.'

'Isabel, my dear Isabel,' cried Madame de Chateauvieux, holding her, 'can't you slip away too, and leave Mr. Wallace to do the honours? There will be nothing left of you to-morrow.'

'Yes, directly, directly! only I feel as if sleep were a thing that did not exist for me. But you must certainly go. Take her, Mr. Kendal; doesn't she look a wreck? I will tell M. de Chateauvieux and send him after you.'

She took Marie's shawl from Kendal's arm and put it tenderly round her; then she smiled down into her eyes, said a low 'good-night, best and kindest of friends!' and the brother and sister hurried away, Kendal dropping the hand which had been cordially stretched out to himself.

'Do you mind, Eustace?' said Madame de Chateauvieux, as they walked across the stage. 'I ought to go, and the party ought to break up. But it is a shame to carry you off from so many friends.'

'Mind? Why, I have ordered supper for you in my rooms, and it is just midnight. I hope these people will have the sense to go soon. Now then, for a cab.'

They alighted at the gate of the Temple, and, as they walked across the quadrangle under a sky still heavy with storm-clouds, Madame de Chateauvieux said to her brother with a sigh: 'Well, it has been a great event. I never remember anything more exciting, or more successful. But there is one thing, I think, that would make me happier than a hundred Elviras, and that is to see Isabel Bretherton the wife of a man she loved!' Then a smile broke over her face as she looked at her brother.

'Do you know, Eustace, I quite made up my mind from those first letters of yours in May, in spite of your denials, that you were very deeply taken with her? I remember quite seriously discussing the pros and cons of it with myself.'

The words were said so lightly, they betrayed so clearly the speaker's conviction that she had made a foolish mistake, that they stung Kendal to the quick. How could Marie have known? Had not his letters for the last three months been misleading enough to deceive the sharpest eyes? And yet he felt unreasonably that she ought to have known--there was a blind clamour in him against the bluntness of her sisterly perception.

His silence was so prolonged that Madame de Chateauvieux was startled by it. She slipped her hand into his arm. 'Eustace!' Still no answer. 'Have I said anything to annoy you--Eustace? Won't you let your old sister have her dreams?'

But still it seemed impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Chateauvieux following in a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last Marie, unable to put up with it any longer, caught his hand as he was bending over the fire.

'Eustace,' she exclaimed, 'be kind to me, and don't perplex me like this.--Oh, my poor old boy, are you in love with Isabel Bretherton?'

'He drew himself to his full height on the rug, and gazed steadily into the fire, the lines of his mobile face settling into repose.

'Yes,' he said, as though to himself; 'I love her. I believe I have loved her from the first moment.'

Madame de Chateauvieux was tremblingly silent, her thoughts travelling back over the past with lightning rapidity. Could she remember one word, one look of Isabel Bretherton's, of which her memory might serve to throw the smallest ray of light on this darkness in which Eustace seemed to be standing? No, not one. Grat.i.tude, friends.h.i.+p, esteem--all these had been there abundantly, but nothing else, not one of those many signs by which one woman betrays her love to another! She rose and put her arm round her brother's neck. They had been so much to one another for nearly forty years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not tried to get for him. How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this boon, was beyond her getting!

Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him. Had he counted upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which would lighten the veil over the future? It must have been so, otherwise why this sense of fresh disaster?

'Dear Marie,' he said to her, kissing her brow as she stood beside him, 'you must be as good to me as you can. I shall probably be a good deal out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help. After all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong. Other things are real to me--I am thankful to say. I shall live it down.'

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