Part 6 (2/2)

She laughed, well pleased at his words.

”I shall not be late,” she said. ”I shall be so anxious to get back and see how my boy has behaved. If you have not been good I shan't go again.”

They kissed and parted, and at eleven she returned to the room. She told him what a delightful evening it had been, and bragged a little of her own success.

The nurse told her that he had been more cheerful that evening than for many nights.

So every day the farce was played for him. One day it was to a luncheon that she went, in a costume by Redfern; the next night to a ball, in a frock direct from Paris; again to an ”At Home,” or concert, or dinner- party. Loafers and pa.s.sers-by would stop to stare at a haggard, red-eyed woman, dressed as for a drawing-room, slipping thief-like in and out of her own door.

I heard them talking of her one afternoon, at a house where I called, and I joined the group to listen.

”I always thought her heartless, but I gave her credit for sense,” a woman was saying. ”One doesn't expect a woman to be fond of her husband, but she needn't make a parade of ignoring him when he is dying.”

I pleaded absence from town to inquire what was meant, and from all lips I heard the same account. One had noticed her carriage at the door two or three evenings in succession. Another had seen her returning home. A third had seen her coming out, and so on.

I could not fit the fact in with my knowledge of her, so the next evening I called. The door was opened instantly by herself.

”I saw you from the window,” she said. ”Come in here; don't speak.”

I followed her, and she closed the door behind her. She was dressed in a magnificent costume, her hair sparkling with diamonds, and I looked my questions.

She laughed bitterly.

”I am supposed to be at the opera to-night,” she explained. ”Sit down, if you have a few minutes to spare.”

I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the dark room, lighted only by the street lamp without, she told me all. And at the end she dropped her head on her bare arms; and I turned away and looked out of the window for a while.

”I feel so ridiculous,” she said, rising and coming towards me. ”I sit here all the evening dressed like this. I'm afraid I don't act my part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a judge of art, and it is good enough for him. I tell him the most awful lies about what everybody has said to me, and what I've said to everybody, and how my gowns were admired. What do you think of this one?”

For answer I took the privilege of a friend.

”I'm glad you think well of me,” she said. ”Billy has such a high opinion of you. You will hear some funny tales. I'm glad you know.”

I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I heard that she had to be fetched from a ball, and was only just in time to touch his lips before they were cold. But her friends excused her by saying that the end had come very suddenly.

I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her what people were saying, and asked her if I had not better tell them the truth.

”I would rather you didn't,” she answered. ”It seems like making public the secret side of one's life.”

”But,” I urged, ”they will think--”

She interrupted me.

”Does it matter very much what they think?”

Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from the Hon. Mrs.

Drayton, _nee_ the elder Miss Lovell.

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