Part 26 (1/2)

His voyage of discovery had not been in vain. He had indeed chartered a hansom to make it, and had brought back fascinating things in the way of cream and tea-cakes and other dainties. As he came in he glanced at the two whom he hoped to see friends. A shadow rested on Nelly's face. He saw nothing amiss with Mary Gray as she went to and fro, busy with the little meal, and had no fault to find with her words as they parted.

”We are going to be great friends, Miss Drummond and I,” she said.

But the note of the nightingale that leans his breast on the thorn, the note of self-sacrifice and yearning tenderness had gone out of her voice.

CHAPTER XXII

LIGHT ON THE WAY

It wanted three weeks to her wedding when one day Nelly suddenly came upon Mrs. Rooke in one of the narrow, fas.h.i.+onable streets south of Oxford Street. Mrs. Rooke was coming out of a florist's shop, and she was carrying a sheaf of lilies in her hand. For one second she looked as though she would have turned aside and avoided Nelly. Then she came straight on with a little unfriendly uplifting of her white chin.

She might have pa.s.sed with a bow if Nelly had not stopped straight in her path.

”How d'ye do?” she said coldly. ”What a delightful day! I had no idea you were back. But to be sure ... I must congratulate you. It is next month, is it not?”

”Yes; it is next month,” Nelly said with stiff lips. ”The twenty-third of July, to be accurate. I have wondered about you. I hope Mr. Rooke is well and Cuckoo and Bunny.”

Bunny was the youngest hope of the Rooke household, a wise, fat, golden-haired child, who had taken a huge fancy to Nelly. At the mention of his name his mother faltered. She had been used to swear by Bunny's sagacity. Bunny had been fond of Nelly Drummond; and there had been a time when Bunny's mother had referred to that fact as though it were Nelly's patent of n.o.bility.

”Cuckoo is at school. Bunny hasn't been very well. Those east winds in May caught him. I had a horrible fright about him. Imagine Bunny--Bunny--choking with croup! I thought I should have gone mad!”

For the moment she had forgotten Nelly's offences, and only remembered that she had been Bunny's friend. Nelly looked back at her as aghast as herself.

”Croup! I never thought of such a thing,” she responded. ”He has never had it before, has he?”

”Never. That was why I was so terrified. I didn't know what to do.

There, don't look so frightened about it! It is over--weeks ago. Indeed, the next day he was about, as well as ever. I should never be so frightened again. It was the horrible novelty of it.”

That frightened look in Nelly's eyes had softened the little woman's not very hard heart.

”I wish I had known,” said Nelly. ”I have wanted to come to see Bunny. I brought him a toy from Paris--a lamb that walks about by itself.”

”Ah! you were thinking of him!”

There was complete reconciliation now in the mother's voice and eyes.

How could she hate the girl who loved Bunny and had remembered to bring him from Paris a lamb that walked about by itself? She put an impulsive hand on Nelly's arm.

”Come home with me and see him. You are not very busy? You can spare the time?”

Nelly was on her way to keep a dress-making appointment, but she felt that not for worlds would she have said so. She flushed up quite happily. That moment of hostility on Mrs. Rooke's part had chilled her sensitive soul.

”Might I call at Sherwood Square for the lamb, do you think?” she asked diffidently.

”To be sure you may. And I'll tell you what--stay to lunch with me.

There'll be n.o.body but ourselves, of course. It comes to me now that I haven't seen you for centuries.”

”Yes; I should like to stay for lunch, thank you.”

Mrs. Rooke rather wondered at the pale determination which came over Nelly's soft face, succeeding the flush of a minute before. It did not occur to her that Nelly had been pus.h.i.+ng away from her with both hands during the weeks since her return the temptation which at this moment was offered to her. Nelly was only too conscious of the strength of her desire to hear something of G.o.dfrey Langrishe.