Part 29 (2/2)

She came down the stairs in four and a half minutes. Robin had been expeditious; it yet wanted twenty minutes to ten by his watch.

He helped her into the hansom, got in himself and placed her little bag at their feet. The hansom turned up the hill. She waited for him to speak.

”Nelly has found out that she made a mistake,” he said quietly. ”Her heart was not given to me, but to a Captain Langrishe of her father's old regiment. News has come that he has been badly wounded, so badly that in all probability he is dead by this time. He had exchanged into an Indian regiment, and almost as soon as he got out he was sent into the hills on the business of this wretched little war. Those conquests of ours, what they cost us! Why should we have all those thousands of miles of frontiers to defend? Why can't we stay at home and let the territories be for their own people?”

She smiled quietly to herself in the corner of the cab. The sudden excursion into politics was so characteristic of him.

The wind of the summer night came cool and friendly in their faces. The blue heaven was studded with stars. A little half-moon hung above the quiet shadows of the square through which they were pa.s.sing. For the stillness they might have been miles away from London.

”What a Don Quixote you are!” she said. ”I believe you would cede India if you had your way.”

”I believe I should. Don't you wonder at me, Miss Gray? My forbears devoted their existence chiefly to extending the boundaries of the British Empire. Am I not their degenerate descendant?”

”Oh, you're a fighting man in other ways. You don't mind facing a hostile audience and saying unpalatable things to them. Mr. Ilbert says you'll have to fight for your seat at the next election.”

”I wouldn't be bothered with a seat I hadn't to fight for. All the same, I'm obliged to Ilbert for his interest in my affairs. Do you know that he referred to me as a Little Englander the other night, as though there were only one way of loving one's country and that to rob other people of theirs?”

His tone was an offended one. The name of Ilbert seemed to have power to irritate him. He resented the idea that Ilbert had talked to Mary of him, disparaged him; he supposed she saw Ilbert often. The idea was exceedingly distasteful to him.

”He has the highest opinion of your honesty and capacity, your patriotism too,” Mary said.

He did not want Ilbert's commendation; he hated that Mary should quote his opinions. He lay back in the hansom, staring before him, and his expression was one of unmixed gloom. Even her neighbourhood had no power to cheer him, although at first he had had a sensation of delight in her nearness to him, the perfume as of flowers that hung about her, the soft folds of her dress which he had touched in the darkness.

They were driving along Sherwood Square now. Across the square itself Robin could see the lit windows of the General's house. Their time together was short, he thought; and perhaps the same thought occurred to Mary, for she touched his sleeve with a gesture of sympathy.

”Will you let me say,” she said, ”how sorry I am for the pain and trouble this must be to you?”

”You mean, because Nelly has--has chucked me?”

”Yes; I mean that.”

For a moment he looked down in silence. He wondered if he had any right to tell the truth. Would it not be like a disparagement of Nelly if he were to confess that he had never loved her? A memory floated into his mind. It was of Lady Agatha Chenevix and something she had said to him once at a dinner-party.

”When I must be indiscreet----” she had begun. ”Yes?” he had answered laughingly. ”When was your ladys.h.i.+p ever anything but indiscreet? and who has made indiscretion adorable like you?” Her ladys.h.i.+p had bidden him hold his tongue with frank camaraderie, and had finished the speech.

”When I am indiscreet, I am indiscreet to Mary. She is like a little well, into which one drops one's indiscretions and puts the lid on.” ”A very clear, transparent, honest well,” he had said.

After the momentary pause he lifted his head. The rest of the world might think him heartbroken if it would; he wanted Mary to know the truth.

”As a matter of fact, Miss Gray,” he said, ”Nelly has not broken my heart. She had always been very dear to me, like a dear little sister.

There was a time when I felt that it would be quite easy to fall in with my mother's plan and marry Nelly. But I had come to the conclusion that my feeling for her was not enough for marriage, before that time in the spring when my mother intimated to me that Nelly was ready to fulfil her engagement. I never considered it an engagement. I was actually about to make things clear when that intimation was given to me. Then, I was led to believe that Nelly had taken it as binding. What could I do only go on? If Nelly cared for me--I confess that I ought to have known it to be an unlikely thing--then my great concern in life was that Nelly should not suffer. It was all a pretty bad mistake, but I am glad it has gone no further.”

He heard something like a sigh, so faint that he could be hardly sure he heard it. It was, in reality, Mary's thanksgiving and great relief; a burden which had lain at her heart for months past taking wings to itself and flying away. She had not acknowledged to herself that cold doubt about Robin Drummond, who had seemed to come so near to her, while all the time he belonged to another woman. She had pushed away the doubt with loyal refusal to hear it; but it had been there all the time. Now it was gone for ever. There was no more need of excuses or explanations to her own heart.

”Thank you for telling me,” she said.

They were at the house-door and the hansom had pulled up. They went up the steps between the couchant lions and before they could knock Pat had opened the door, as though he had been listening for them.

”Miss Nelly is in the drawing-room, sir,” he said in his privileged Irish way; ”but the master has just gone into the study.”

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