Part 15 (1/2)

Certainly, all Nelly's world was very good to her in those days. As for Robin Drummond, he thought of women with a chivalrous tenderness somewhat strange considering that the Dowager was his mother. To him they were something delicate, mysterious, inexplicable. If he had had a sister he would have adored her. Not having one, he lavished on Nelly the feeling he would have given a sister; and hitherto he had been content with the ardour of his feelings. What could a man wish for sweeter and prettier beside his hearth than little Nelly? He had fallen in love with that plan of his mother's for him and Nell with lazy contentment. He liked Nelly's society, and it did not occur to him that he would be just as well pleased with her daily companions.h.i.+p if he could have it without the tie between them becoming more than cousinly.

CHAPTER XIV

LOVERS' PARTING

It might have been better for Nelly if her father had told her of those tentative advances to Captain Langrishe, for then her pride might have come to her aid. As it was, she had nothing to go upon but those looks of his, and his manner to her when they had met at the houses of friends. For they had met, and that was something the General did not know. More, Nelly had engineered, with the cleverness of a girl in love, an acquaintance with Captain Langrishe's sister, a Mrs. Rooke, who lived in one of the Bayswater squares. Mrs. Rooke was a vivacious little dark woman, with a cheek like a peach's rosy side. She was perfectly happy in her own married life, and she had the happily-married woman's desire to bring lovers together. She had taken a prodigious fancy to Nelly. While Captain Langrishe yet remained in England that house in the Bayswater square had an overwhelming attraction for Nelly.

She had gone there first under the Dowager's wing. Cyprian Rooke, K.C., belonged to an unexceptionable family, and even the proud Dowager could find no fault with Nelly's friends.h.i.+p for his wife.

In those days poor Nelly used to feel a perfect monster of deceit. For, first of all, she was deceiving her dear old father. The name of Rooke signified nothing one way or the other to him. Then there was the Dowager, who had proved the most patient and considerate of chaperons, sitting wide-eyed and cheerful till her charge had danced through the programme if it so pleased her; going hither and thither to crowded At Homes, attending first nights at the play--doing, in fact, everything to give Nelly a good time. To be sure, the Dowager attached no importance to the name of Langrishe any more than the General did to that of Rooke.

Mrs. Rooke gave a good many dances after Christmas, and Nelly was at them all. Sometimes Robin was there, sometimes that was not possible.

And Robin was out of his element at such gatherings, since he did not dance and could find no conversation to his mind while he leant against the wall of the ball-room or hung about the doors. Life was so full of work for him that it seemed unreasonable to keep him where there was nothing he could do.

Captain Langrishe turned up at the dances as unfailingly as Nelly herself. He came in spite of many resolutions to the contrary, as the moth comes to singe its wings in the flame of the candle. He did not make Nelly conspicuous for the Dowager or anyone else to see. Sometimes he asked her for several dances. Again, he would be merely polite in asking her for one; and would yield her up coldly to her next partner and never come to her side again for the rest of the evening. Unlike Sir Robin, he danced conspicuously well. Nelly had thrilled to a speech of Robin's: ”One cannot despise the art of dancing for a man when a fellow like that thinks it worth his while to excel in it.”

One night, when the guests had departed, Mrs. Rooke had something to tell her husband.

”That little wretch, Nelly Drummond!” she said. ”I thought she was as innocent and candid as a child. Would you believe it that all the time she has been engaged to that gawky cousin of hers?”

”My dear Belinda, all what time?”

”Well, for a lawyer, Cyprian----”

”I know I'm obtuse, but the law doesn't favour deductions. All what time?”

”Why, all the time poor G.o.dfrey's been falling head over ears in love with her.”

Mr. Rooke whistled. He was fond of his wife's brother.

”Are you sure, Bel? I noticed particularly that he was dancing with the wallflowers to-night. He's a good fellow, so that didn't surprise me.

Now you mention it, I caught sight of the little girl dancing with Jack Menzies. She didn't look particularly happy.”

”She hasn't been looking particularly happy. I have been imagining that G.o.dfrey's poverty stood between them. He is so impracticable. And I have been making opportunities for them to meet. After all, she is Sir Denis Drummond's only child, and is sure to be sufficiently well off. And here, after all my trouble, I find she is engaged to her cousin. I wonder what she can see in that ugly stick to prefer him to G.o.dfrey!”

”She may not prefer him, my dear. It may be a marriage of convenience.

And Drummond is not a stick. That is your feminine prejudice. He is a very clever fellow, although he has got the Socialistic bee in his bonnet. However, he's young, and has time to mend his ways.”

”I don't want to discuss him. How coldblooded you are, Cyprian! I can only think of my poor G.o.dfrey going off to the ends of the earth, and his being deceived and hurt by that heartless girl.”

”You will let him know?”

”I certainly shall. He ought to know. It may be the quickest way to make him forget her.”

”Since he seems to have made up his mind to go away without speaking to her, I can't see that any great harm has been done,” Mr. Rooke said, with his masculine common-sense.

”I shall never forgive her,” Mrs. Rooke retorted, with true feminine inconsequence.

She took an early opportunity of telling her brother what the Dowager had told her. The occasion was in her own drawing-room at the afternoon-tea hour, and, since the room was only lit by firelight and a tall standard lamp, his face, where he stood by the mantel-shelf, was in shadow. There had been something portentous in the manner of the telling.