Part 4 (2/2)

”I hope their coming won't bore you, Richard. Athena couldn't get out of it. You see Pache practically asked her to ask them over. They want to show their lion, and they also want to entertain their lion! I confess I'm rather looking forward to seeing Lingard.”

”I've seen so many lions.” Mr. Maule spoke with a touch of weary irritation. And then he added, after a rather long pause, ”I never cared for soldiers, at any rate not for your modern man of war who goes out with a Gatling gun to kill a lot of poor n.i.g.g.e.rs.”

”Lingard has done more than that, Richard. He succeeded where three other men had failed, and what is really wonderful, he did it on the cheap.”

”That I admit _is_ wonderful,” said Richard Maule dryly, ”but I don't suppose the people who are now feting him are doing it as a reward for his economy. However, no matter, we'll entertain the Pachian hero.”

The mahogany door at the end of the long room opened, then it was closed quietly, and a woman came in, bringing with her a sudden impression of vitality, of youth, of buoyant strength into the shadowed, over-heated room.

Athena Maule advanced with easy, graceful steps till she stood, a radiant figure, in the circle of warring light cast by the fire and by the shaded lamps. Her cheeks were flushed, tinted to an exquisite carmine that seemed to leave more white her low forehead and now heaving bosom.

She stopped just between the two men, glancing quickly first at one and then at the other. And then at last, after a perceptible pause, she spoke, her clear accents, slightly foreign in their intonation, falling ominously on the ears of her small audience of two.

”I've just had a letter from Jane Oglander.”

The younger of the two men wondered with a certain lazy amus.e.m.e.nt whether Athena was aware of how dramatic had been her announcement of a singularly insignificant fact. As to the older man--he who sat by the fireplace--he had turned and deliberately looked away as the door opened. But now it was he who spoke, and this to d.i.c.k Wantele was significant, for Richard Maule very seldom spoke of his own accord, to his wife.

”Then isn't she coming to-morrow? It seems a long time since Jane left us--in August, wasn't it?”

”Jane Oglander,” said Mrs. Maule, her left hand playing with the ta.s.sel terminating the Algerian scarf which slipped below her bare dimpled shoulders, ”Jane Oglander wishes me to tell you both that--that she is going to be married.”

Richard Maule fixed his stern, sunken eyes on his wife. It was a terrible look--a look of mingled contempt and hatred.

”Anyone we know?” asked d.i.c.k Wantele quietly.

Athena Maule looked at him with a grudging admiration. d.i.c.k was certainly what some of her English friends called ”game,” and her French friends ”_crane_.” She had now lived in England for some eight years, but she did not yet understand Englishmen and their ways; and of all the strange Englishmen she had come across, there were few that struck her as so queer--queer was the word--as her husband's cousin, d.i.c.k Wantele.

But he had long ceased really to interest her.

Walking slowly down the long gallery upstairs, Mrs. Maule had thought deeply how she should make her startling announcement, how reveal the news which had hurt her so shrewdly as to make her wish--such being her nature--that others should share her pain.

She had thought of coming in with Jane Oglander's letter open in her hand, but no, this she decided would be rather cheap, and would also in a measure prepare d.i.c.k--it was d.i.c.k whom she wished to hurt, whom she knew she would hurt. Richard Maule was incapable of being hurt by anything. But still it was very pleasant to know that even Richard would be irritated at the thought that Jane Oglander, who had now been for so long the one healing, soothing presence in their sombre household, and whom he had stupidly believed would end by marrying d.i.c.k Wantele was now going to disappear into the mora.s.s of British matronhood.

”Anyone we know?” she repeated consideringly. ”No, not exactly, but someone who is quite famous and whom we shall know very soon.”

d.i.c.k Wantele shrugged his shoulders with a nervous movement. His cousin's wife was fond of talking in enigmas, especially to him, and especially when she knew he desired to be told a simple fact simply and quickly.

Then something unexpected happened. Richard Maule again spoke, and again addressed his wife.

”I suppose,” he said, ”you mean General Lingard?”

”How did you know? Has Jane written to you?” Mrs. Maule flashed the questions out.

The one who looked on was vividly aware that this was the first time, so far as he knew, for years, that Athena Maule had asked direct questions of her husband, questions demanding answers.

Even now Richard Maule did not vouchsafe his wife the courtesy of a reply. It seemed to him that her questions answered themselves, and in the negative.

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