Part 54 (2/2)

'I only wish I had known. I should not have dawdled so long over my dressing.'

'I am very glad you did not know,' Lesbia answered coolly.

'Do you suppose I never want to be alone? Life in London is perpetual turmoil; one's eyes grow weary with ever-moving crowds, one's ears ache with trying to distinguish one voice among the buzz of voices.'

'Then why go back to town? Why go back to the turmoil and the treadmill?

It is only a kind of treadmill, after all, though we choose to call it pleasure. Stay here, Lesbia, and let us live upon the river, and among the flowers,' urged Smithson, with as romantic an air as if he had never heard of contango, or bulling and bearing; and yet only half an hour ago, while his valet was shaving him, he was debating within himself whether he should be bear or bull in his influence upon certain stock.

It was supposed that he never went near the city, that he had shaken the dust of Lombard Street and the House off his shoes, that his fortune was made, and he had no further need of speculation. Yet the proverb holds good with the stock-jobber. 'He who has once drunk will drink again.' Of that fountain there is no satiety.

'Stay and hear the last of the nightingales,' he murmured; 'we are famous for our nightingales.'

'I wonder you don't order a _frica.s.see_ of their tongues, like that loathsome person in Roman history.'

'I hope I shall never resemble any loathsome person. Why can you not stay?'

'Why, because it is not etiquette, Lady Kirkbank says.'

'Lady Kirkbank, eh? _la belle farce_, Lady Kirkbank standing out for etiquette.'

'Don't laugh at my chaperon, sir. Upon what rock can a poor girl lean if you undermine her faith in her chaperon, sir.'

'I hope you will have a better guardian before you are a month older. I mean to be a very strong rock, Lesbia. You do not know how firmly I shall stand between you and all the perils of society. You have been but poorly guarded hitherto.'

'You talk as if you mean to be an abominable tyrant,' said Lesbia. 'If you don't take care I shall change my mind, and recall my promise.'

'Not on that account, Lesbia: every woman likes a man who stands up for his own. It is only your invertebrate husband whose wife drifts into the divorce court. I mean to keep and hold the prize I have won. When is it to be, dearest--our wedding day?'

'Not for ages, I hope--some time next summer, at the earliest.'

'You would not be so cruel as to keep me waiting a year?'

'Why not?'

'You would not ask that if you loved me.'

'You are asking too much,' said Lesbia, with a flash of defiance. 'There has been nothing said about love yet. You asked me to be your wife, and I said yes--meaning that at some remote period such a thing might be.'

She knew that the man was her slave--slave to her beauty, slave to her superior rank--and she was determined not to lessen the weight of his chain by so much as a feather.

'Did not that promise imply something like love?' he asked, earnestly.

'Perhaps it implied a little grat.i.tude for your devotion, which I have neither courted nor encouraged a little respect for your talents, your perseverance--a little admiration for your wonderful success in life.

Perhaps love may follow these sentiments, naturally, easily, if you are very patient; but if you talk about our being married before next year, you will simply make me hate you.'

'Then I will say very little, except to remind you that there is no earthly reason why we should not be married next month. October and November are the best months for Rome, and I heard you say last night you were pining to see Rome.'

'What then--cannot Lady Kirkbank take me to Rome?'

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