Part 28 (1/2)
”You are very kind, Helene,” Mr. Sabin said. ”I cannot refuse anything which you offer in so charming a manner. But I shall not keep you more than a few minutes.”
”We need not leave for an hour,” Helene said, ”and I am dressed except for my jewels. Tell me, have you seen Lucille? I am so anxious to know.”
”I have seen Lucille this evening,” Mr. Sabin answered.
”At Dorset House!”
”Yes.”
Helene sat down, smiling.
”Do tell me all about it.”
”There is very little to tell,” Mr. Sabin answered.
”She is with you--she returns at least!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
”No,” he answered. ”She remains at Dorset House.”
Helene was silent. Mr. Sabin smoked pensively a moment or two, and sipped the liqueur which Camperdown's own servant had just brought him.
”It is very hard, Helene,” he said, ”to make you altogether understand the situation, for there are certain phases of it which I cannot discuss with you at all. I have made my first effort to regain Lucille, and it has failed. It is not her fault. I need not say that it is not mine. But the struggle has commenced, and in the end I shall win.”
”Lucille herself--” Helene began hesitatingly.
”Lucille is, I firmly believe, as anxious to return to me as I am anxious to have her,” Mr. Sabin said.
Helene threw up her hands.
”It is bewildering,” she exclaimed.
”It must seem so to you,” Mr. Sabin admitted.
”I wish that Lucille were anywhere else,” Helene said. ”The Dorset House set, you know, although they are very smart and very exclusive, have a somewhat peculiar reputation. Lady Carey, although she is such a brilliant woman, says and does the most insolent, the most amazing things, and the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer goes everywhere in Europe by the name of the Royal libertine. They are powerful enough almost to dominate society, and we poor people who abide by the conventions are absolutely nowhere beside them. They think that we are bourgeois because we have virtue, and prehistoric because we are not decadent.”
”The Duke--” Mr. Sabin remarked.
”Oh, the Duke is quite different, of course,” Helene admitted. ”He is a fanatical Tory, very stupid, very blind to anything except his beloved Primrose League. How he came to lend himself to the vagaries of such a set I cannot imagine.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
”C'est la femme toujours!” he remarked. ”His Grace is, I fear, henpecked, and the d.u.c.h.ess herself is the sport of cleverer people. And now, my dear niece, I see that the time is going. I came to know if you could get me a card for the ball at Carmarthen House to-night.”
Helene laughed softly.
”Very easily, my dear UNCLE. Lady Carmarthen is Wolfendon's cousin, you know, and a very good friend of mine. I have half a dozen blank cards here. Shall I really see you there?”
”I believe so,” Mr. Sabin answered.