Part 19 (1/2)
”Why are you curious about him?” she asked.
”I wish I knew. I think only because he came from Lenox.”
She turned her face slowly round towards him. He was astonished to see the dark rings under her eyes, the weariness of her smile.
”The Duke of Souspennier,” she said slowly, ”is an old and a dear friend of mine. When you tell me that he is in London I am anxious because there are many here who are not his friends--who have no cause to love him.”
”I was wrong then,” he said, ”not to give him your address.”
”You were right,” she answered. ”I am anxious that he should not know it. You will remember this?” He rose and bowed over her hand.
”This has been a selfish interlude,” he said. ”I have destroyed your rest, and I almost fear that I have also disturbed your peace of mind.
Let me take my leave and pray that you may recover both.”
She shook her head.
”Do not leave me,” she said. ”I am low-spirited. You shall stay and cheer me.”
There was a light in his eyes which few people would have recognised.
She rose with a little laugh and stood leaning towards the fire, her elbow upon the broad mantel, tall, graceful, alluring. Her soft crimson gown, with its wealth of old lace, fell around her in lines and curves full of grace. The pallor of her face was gone now--the warmth of the fire burned her cheeks. Her voice became softer.
”Sit down and talk to me,” she murmured. ”Do you remember the old days, when you were a very timid young secretary of Sir George Nomsom, and I was a maid-of-honour at the Viennese Court? Dear me, how you have changed!”
”Time,” he said, ”will not stand still for all of us. Yet my memory tells me how possible it would be--for indeed those days seem but as yesterday.”
He looked up at her with a sudden jealousy. His tone shook with pa.s.sion.
No one would have recognised Brott now. In his fiercest hour of debate, his hour of greatest trial, he had worn his mask, always master of himself and his speech. And now he had cast it off. His eyes were hungry, his lips twitched.
”As yesterday! Lucille, I could kill you when I think of those days. For twenty years your kiss has lain upon my lips--and you--with you--it has been different.”
She laughed softly upon him, laughed more with her eyes than with her lips. She watched him curiously.
”Dear me!” she murmured, ”what would you have? I am a woman--I have been a woman all my days, and the memory of one kiss grows cold. So I will admit that with me--it has been different. Come! What then?”
He groaned.
”I wonder,” he said, ”what miserable fate, what cursed stroke of fortune brought you once more into my life?”
She threw her head back and laughed at him, this time heartily, unaffectedly.
”What adorable candour!” she exclaimed. ”My dear friend, how amiable you are.”
He looked at her steadfastly, and somehow the laugh died away from her lips.
”Lucille, will you marry me?”
”Marry you? I? Certainly not.”
”And why not?”