Part 18 (2/2)

He would say nothing. He would have to endure the looks she would send him from under her white eyelids, the looks of wistful entreaty. After all, he had not _said_ he was going to do anything. He had implied it, to be sure, but he had not committed himself to anything very definite.

Perhaps Nelly would not discover, for a time at least, the dangerous service Langrishe had gone on. She was no more fond of the newspapers than any other young girl. For the moment he was grateful to the Dowager that she claimed so much of Nelly's time.

He began to look forward with a fearful antic.i.p.ation to Nelly's marriage to her cousin. Something must be settled at once, before she could begin to grieve over Langrishe. He would be alone, of course, but Nelly would be in harbour. He did so much justice to Robin that he believed her happiness would be safe with him. He felt as if he must go home and put matters in train at once. He was impatient till Nelly was safe. It did not occur to him that he was, perhaps, once more wresting the conduct of his daughter's happiness from the Hand in Whose guidance he humbly trusted.

He awoke with a start to the fact that he had been more than half an hour pacing along by the water's edge. He hurried back to the hotel.

Fortunately, his chop was not put on the grill till he returned, and it was served to him piping hot, with tomatoes and a bottle of Burton.

Rather to his amazement, he enjoyed it thoroughly, but when he had finished it he had still more than an hour to wait.

He drove across country to another station, and arrived home early in the afternoon. During the return journey his mind was quite calm and unperturbed. He had had the guidance he needed, and now he had only to let things be--as though it were in his character to let things be!

He dreaded meeting Nelly's eyes and welcomed the Dowager's presence with effusion. He suggested to the lady that she should dine, and afterwards they would visit a theatre--_A Soldier's Love_ at the Adelphi was well worth seeing, he believed. Lady Drummond accepted, flattered by this unwonted friendliness. He would hardly let her out of his sight all that afternoon. She was his safeguard against Nelly's wondering, reproachful eyes.

He had to endure those eyes all the next day. Then--the eyes retired in on themselves, became introspective. It was hardly easier for the General, that look of a suffering woman in his Nelly's eyes.

To be sure, poor Nelly had known of that journey to Tilbury just as well as if she had accompanied him. The only thing she did not know was that he had failed to see Captain Langrishe. And his silence--the looks of tender pity he sent her when he thought he was un.o.bserved, what could they mean but that his mediation had been in vain? For some strange, cruel reason, although he loved her and he must know he was breaking her heart, her lover would have none of her. Even the knowledge that he loved her ceased to be an anodyne in those days.

Everyone was so good to her. She seemed to have found a way to the Dowager's arid heart, as her own son had not. The Dowager seemed dimly aware that Nelly was suffering in some way, and was tender to her. She came to the General with a proposal. Why should they not all go abroad together and escape the east winds of spring? The General leaped at it.

Once get Nelly abroad and she would know nothing of what was happening on the Indian frontier. He, and Nelly and the Dowager. He had not imagined the Dowager in such a party--yet, he shrank from the prolonged _tete-a-tete_ with Nell which the trip would have been without the Dowager's presence. Robin would join them at Easter. They could all travel home together.

There was a time of bustle when Nelly and the Dowager were getting their travelling outfits. A spark of excitement, of antic.i.p.ation, lit up Nelly's sad eyes. The General could have hugged the Dowager.

”Your dear father,” the Dowager said to Nelly one day, ”how calm he grows as he turns round to old age! I see in him more and more the brother my dear Gerald looked up to and reverenced.”

The peacefulness, the good understanding, had their effect, too, on Nelly. It was good that those she loved should dwell together in amity.

She was in that state that she could not have endured sharpness or rancour.

Only Pat shook his head disapprovingly.

”If he goes on like this,” he said, ”he'll be goin' to Heaven before his time. I'd a deal sooner hear him grumblin' about her Ladys.h.i.+p as he used to do. It 'ud be more natural-like, so it would. Why would we be callin'

him 'Old Blood and Thunder' if 'twas to be like an image he was? Och, the ould times were ever the best!”

”He'll come to himself yet,” said Bridget more hopefully.

CHAPTER XVII

A NIGHT OF SPRING

The room was a long bare one, with three deep windows. They were all open so that the fog and the noises of the street came in freely. It had for furniture a long office table, an American desk, several cupboards--the door of one of these last stood open, revealing lettered pigeon-holes inside. Everywhere there were files, letter-baskets, all manner of receptacles for papers. There were a number of hard, painted chairs. An American clock ticked on the mantel-shelf, a fire burned in the grate behind a high wire screen. The unshaded gas-lights gave the room a dreary aspect it need not have had otherwise.

The only occupant of the room was Mary Gray, who sat at a small table working a typewriter. She had pulled a gas-jet down low over her head, and the light of it was on her hair, bringing out bronze lights in it, on her neck, showing its whiteness and roundness. The machine clicked away busily. Sheet after sheet was pulled from it and dropped into a basket. The basket was half-filled with the pile of papers that had fallen into it.

Suddenly there came a little tap at the door. Mary raised her head and looked towards it expectantly as she said, ”Come in.”

Someone came in, someone whom she had expected to see, although she had said to herself that she supposed the caretaker of the building had grown tired of waiting, and was coming to remind her that the church clock had just struck seven.

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