"Now, isn't it a pretty dance?" murmured Mrs. Dollond rapturously,
as she sank into a low chair in a corner secure from the traffic of
the kaleidoscopic crowd which had invaded Mrs. Lightmark's
drawing-room, and opened her painted fan with a little sigh intended
to express her beatitude.
Colonel Lightmark, to whom Mrs. Dollond addressed this complimentary
query (which, after all, was more of an assertion or challenge, in
that it took its answer for granted), was arrayed in the brilliant
scarlet and silver of the regiment which had once the honour of
calling him Colonel; his tunic was so tight that sitting down was
almost an impossibility for him, and Mrs. Dollond, who looked
charming in her powder and brocade, could not help wondering whether
any mortal buttons could stand the strain; and, on the other hand,
the dimensions of his patent leather boots were such that standing,
for a man of his weight, involved a torture which it was hard to
conceal. And yet the veteran was happy--he was positively radiant.
He felt that his nephew's success in the world of Art and of Society
considerably enhanced his own importance; he was not ashamed to owe
a portion of his brilliance to borrowed light--and tonight one could
not count the celebrities on the fingers of both hands.
The old hero-worshipper gazed complacently at the little
ever-shifting crowd which surrounded his nephew and his niece (so he
called her) at their post near the doorway, and he listened to Mrs.
Dollond's sparkling sallies with a blissful ignorance of her secret
ambition in the direction of a partner who would make her dance, and
for whose edification she would be able to liken the Colonel's
warlike figure to a newly-boiled lobster, or a ripe tomato.
"Regular flower-show, isn't it?" he suggested, naïvely reinforcing
his simile. "I don't know what the dickens they're all meant
for, but a good many of them seem to have escaped from the
Lyceum--Juliets, and Portias, and Shylocks, and so forth."
"Yes," said Mrs. Dollond. "I think the Shylocks must be
picture-dealers, you know. But their conversation isn't very
Shakespearian, is it? I heard Hamlet say, just now, that the floor
was too perfect for anything, and Ophelia--she was dancing with a
Pierrot _incroyable_--told her partner that she adored waltzing to a
string band!"
They both laughed, the Colonel shortly and boisterously, Mrs.
Dollond in a manner which suggested careful study before a
looking-glass, with an effect of dimples and of flashing teeth.
"What wicked things you say, Colonel Lightmark," she added demurely.
"Who is that stately person in the dark figured silk, with a
cinque-cento ruff? Isn't it Lady Garnett's niece?"
"Yes, that's Miss Masters," said the Colonel, "and I suppose that's
Lady Garnett with her. I don't think I've ever met Lady Garnett,
though I've often heard of her. What is her dress--whom is she
intended to represent? I don't see how the dickens one's expected to
know, but you're so clever."
"Oh, she's dressed as--as Lady Garnett! What a lot of people--_real_
people, you know--there are here to-night! Dear me, there's the
music again already. I believe I've got to dance this time. I do
hope my partner's dress won't clash with mine too awfully. That's
the worst of fancy dress balls; they really ought to be
stage-managed by a painter, and the period ought to be limited.
One's never safe. Our dance, Mr. Copal? Number six? Yes, I think it
must be! A polka? Then we'll waltz!"
And the Colonel, who was not a dancing man, was left in not
unwelcome solitude to reflect somewhat ponderously on the advantages
of possessing a nephew and niece young enough, brilliant enough, and
rich enough--though that was partly _his_ affair--to cultivate the
very pink and perfection of smart society. He regarded Dick in the
light of a profitable investment.
When the young people, so to speak, came to the rescue of the
avuncular hulk, it was already beginning to drift into the corner of
the harbour devoted to derelicts.
The friends who had developed about his path in such flattering
numbers when he came home from India, and retired, with a
newly-acquired fortune and a vague halo of military distinction
about his person, into the ranks of the half-paid, were beginning to
find him rather old and, frankly, a considerable bore; but the
timely benevolence which he had extended to his nephew was, it
appeared, to have its reward in this world in the shape of a kind of
reflected rejuvenescence, a temporary respite from the limbo of (how
he hated the word!) fogeydom.
When Dick married, his uncle was already settling down in a narrow
groove among the people of yesterday; now he felt that he had once
more established his foothold among the people of to-day.
Presently he noticed that Lady Dulminster had arrived, and he made
his way across the room to meet her with a quite youthful
bashfulness, cannoning apologetically against Romeos and
Marguerites, hoping that she would like his uniform.
There was one person, at least, in the room who made no attempt to
assure herself that she was enjoying the vivid gaiety of these
parti-coloured revels.
Mary Masters, when she had time for solitary thought, found that the
atmosphere of the charming room was full of mockery. For her, the
passionate vibrations of the strained, incessant strings seemed to
breathe the wild complaint of lost souls; the multitudinous tread of
gliding feet, the lingering sweep of silken skirts, the faint, sweet
perfume of exotic flowers, all had a new and strange significance;
the effect of an orchestral fugue wearily repeating the expression
of a frenzied heartlessness, a great unrest.
The girl was completely unstrung. Since Charles had brought her
news, which, after all, had been merely a corroboration, her nerves
had played her false; the balance of her mind was thrown out of
poise; and the fact that she was there at all seemed only a part of
her failing, an additional proof of her moral collapse.
Seated on a low ottoman, in a little recess among the tall palms and
tree-ferns, which lined the passage leading from the ball-room to
the studio, she was startled presently from her reverie by Mrs.
Lightmark, who confronted her, a dainty figure in the pale rose
colour and apple-green of one of Watteau's most unpractical
shepherdesses.
"Not dancing, Mary!" she protested, smiling a little languidly.
"What does it mean? Why are you sitting in stately solitude with
such an evident contempt for our frivolity?"
"Frivolity!" echoed Miss Masters. "I _have_ been dancing, this last
waltz, with Lord Overstock. I have sent him to find my fan. I told
him exactly where to look, but I suppose he can't discover it. He's
not very clever, you know!"
"Poor Lord Overstock! I hope he won't find it just yet and come to
turn me out of his seat. I'm _so_ tired of standing, of introducing
men whose names I never knew to girls whose names I have forgotten,
and of trying to avoid introducing the same people twice over. It's
so difficult to recognize people in their powder and patches!"
"Yes," said Mary slowly, with a kind of inward resentment which she
could not subdue, although she felt that it was unreasonable, "I
almost wonder that you recognised me."
Eve glanced at her, struck by her tone, trying to read her
expression in the dim light, a shadow of bewilderment passing over
her own face and for a moment lowering the brilliancy of her eyes.
Then she smiled again, dismissing her thought with a little laugh
which broke off abruptly.
"One so soon forgets!" the other added, with an intention in her
voice, an involuntary betrayal which she almost immediately
regretted.
"Forgets!"
Eve caught up the word eagerly, almost passionately, her voice
falling into a lower key.
"Forget! Forgive and forget!" repeated Mary quickly and recklessly,
letting her eyes wander from her own clasped hands to Eve's bouquet
of delicate, scentless fritillaries, which lay neglected where it
had fallen on the floor between their feet. "How easy it sounds!--is
perhaps--and yet--I have not so much to forget--or to be forgiven!"
The last words were almost whispered, but for Eve's imagination,
poised on tiptoe like a hunted creature blindly listening for the
approach of the Pursuer, they were full of suggestion, of
denunciation.
She remembered now, with a swiftly banished pang of jealousy, that
this girl had loved him.
Her thought sped back to a summer evening nearly a year ago, when it
had seemed to her that she had surprised her friend's secret.
"What do you mean, Mary?" she demanded courageously. "What have I to
be forgiven? Don't despise me; don't, for Heaven's sake, don't play
with me! I am all in the dark! Are you accusing me? Do you think
because I say nothing that I have forgotten--that I can forget? Is
it something about--him?"
Mary cast a rapid glance at her.
"Are you afraid of his name, then?"
Eve dropped her hands despairingly.
"Ah, you do! You _are_ playing with me! About Philip Rainham, then!
For Heaven's sake speak! Do you know what I only guess--that he was
innocent? For God's sake say it!"
It was Mary's turn to look bewildered, to feel penitent. She began
to recognise that there were greater depths in Eve's nature than she
had suspected, that her indifference might, after all, prove to have
been merely a mask.
"You guess--innocent--don't you know, then?"
"Nothing, nothing! I only suspect--believe! I have been groping
alone in the darkness--and yet I _do_ know! He was innocent--he played
a part?"
"Yes," said Mary gently; "he sacrificed himself, for another!"
"He sacrificed himself--for me. Ah, say it! say it!"
Mary was greatly puzzled and at the same time moved--filled with a
supreme compassion for this woman who was yet such a child, so
dainty and frail a thing to confront the deadly knowledge that she
had made a shipwreck of a life, of lives.
And yet, was there not also a ring of exultation, a challenge in her
last words?
At least, her sorrow was ennobled. She was invested with a sombre
glory, as one who had inspired a rare and perfect devotion.
And, after all, had she not already been considered enough?
A silence ensued, during which Eve seemed to be wrapped in steadfast
thought.
She grew calmer, picking up her bouquet, and sedulously arranging
its disordered foliage; while Lord Overstock, who had arrived with
Mary's fan, poured forth elaborate apologies, protesting that she
must give him another dance--the second extra--to make up for the
time he had lost.
Already the music was beginning for the next dance, and people
passed in couples, laughing and talking gaily, a motley procession,
on their way into the ball-room.
"I thought your brother would have told you," said Mary softly,
bending over her programme and gathering her skirts together with a
suggestion of departure.
"Charles? He was always prejudiced against him--always his enemy!"
"That is why; he is very just, very conscientious. He told me this
afternoon."
Mary's voice sank a little lower. She was standing now. She could
see her prospective partner looking for her. She wondered vaguely
whether Eve accepted the alternative, whether she realized that, to
prove Philip innocent, was to establish her husband's guilt, his
original wrong-doing, and subsequent cowardice.
"But--Charles! How did he know? Does he believe it? Who told him?"
Mary had gently disengaged her arm from Eve's restraining hand. She
stepped back for an instant, excusing herself to her expectant
cavalier.
"One of Philip's friends told him to-day--proved it to him, he says.
It was a Mr. Oswyn."
A minute later Mary found herself in the ball-room, making heroic
efforts to divide her entire attention impartially between the
strains of the band and the remarks of her partner.
She was afraid to pass in review the conduct of those few minutes
which had seemed so long. Had it really all occurred in the interval
between two waltzes?
For the present she drew a mental curtain over the scene. She lacked
the courage to gaze upon her handiwork, although she was not without
a hopeful instinct that, when she criticised it in sober daylight,
she would even approve of what she had done. Her determination did
not, however, carry her further than the middle of the dance.
The room was now crowded to repletion, and she readily fell in with
her partner's suggestion that they should take a turn in the cooler
atmosphere of the garden; and as she passed the threshold, a rapid,
retrospective glance informed her that Eve was once more playing her
arduous part of hostess.
Never had actress more anxiously awaited the fall of the curtain
upon her scene. Her husband, in the gallant russet of a falconer,
was dancing now with Mrs. Dollond: she could hear his frequent
laughter, and, though she turned her eyes away, see him bending over
his partner to catch the words, trivial enough no doubt, which she
seemed to whisper with such an air of confidence. But, though she
had heard him address Mrs. Dollond by her Christian name, she did
not pay him the compliment of being jealous: the time for that had
passed. The account which she had to demand of him related to a
matter far more serious than the most flagrant of flirtations--she
only longed to confront him, to tear from him a confession, not so
much with a view to humiliate him as to enlighten herself, and to
force him to make the only reparation in his power.
When the music had ceased, and the measured tread of feet lapsed
into the confusion of independent wanderings, Eve turned to find her
husband close behind her, and Mrs. Dollond firing off a neat little
speech of congratulation, panting a little, and making play with her
elaborate fan.
She was quick to seize the opportunity for which she had waited so
eagerly; with a few words of smiling apology to Mrs. Dollond and the
others who were gathered round her, she intimated to her husband
that she wished him to come with her, to attend to something: she
assumed a playful air of mystery.
"Oh, you must go!" said Mrs. Dollond, "your wife is planning some
delightful surprise for us: I can see it in her eyes! Though, what
one could want more----"
The music began again, and the couples took their places for the
Lancers: there was to be a Shakespearian set, and another of
Waverley notabilities.
Under cover of the discussion and confusion which this scheme
involved, Eve withdrew, leading the way into the room which they
called the library, and which was full of superfluous furniture,
removed from the drawing-room to make space for the dancers. Her
husband followed, lifting his eyebrows, with a chivalrous but not
wholly successful attempt to disguise his impatience.
When he had closed the door, Eve turned suddenly and confronted him,
interrupting the question which was on his lips. He noticed, with a
quick apprehension, that she was very pale, that the smile which she
had worn for her guests had given place to an expression even more
ominous than her pallor and the trembling of her lips.
"Why have I brought you here?" she echoed. "I don't know, I might
have asked you before them all--perhaps you would have preferred
that! But I won't keep you long. The truth! That is all I want!"
He frowned, with a vicious movement of his lips: then meeting her
gaze, made an awkward effort to seem at ease.
"My dear child!" he said, stepping back and leaning his back against
the door, "what melodrama! The truth! what truth?"
"How often you must have withheld it from me, to ask like that! The
truth about Philip Rainham, and that woman: that is what I ask!"
Lightmark exclaimed petulantly at this:
"Haven't we discussed it all before? Haven't you questioned me
beyond all limits? Haven't you said that you believed me? And what a
time----"
"Yes, I have asked you before. Is it my fault that you have lied? Is
it my fault that you have made it possible for--for someone else to
prove to me, to-night, that you have deceived me? The time is not of
my making. But now, I must have the truth; it is the only
reparation, the last thing I shall ask of you!"
"You must be mad!" he stammered, his self-possession deserting him;
"you don't know--you have no right to speak to me like this. You
don't understand these things; you must let me judge for you----"
"The only thing I understand clearly is that you have blackened
another man's--your friend's--memory. Isn't that enough? Can you
deny that you have allowed him to bear your shame? I know now that
he was innocent; I insist that you shall tell me the rest!"
"The rest!" he repeated impatiently, shifting his attitude. "I won't
submit to this cross-examination! I have explained it all before; I
decline to say any more!"
"Then you cling to your lie?"
"Lie? Pray, don't be so sensational; you talk like the heroine of a
fifth-rate drama! Who has put such a mad idea into your head? Let me
warn you that there are limits to my patience!"
"I will tell you, if you will come with me and deny it to his
face--if you will refute his proofs."
"Proofs! You have no right to ask such a thing! I tell you, I have
acted for the best. Why should you believe the first comer rather
than me?"
"Why? You can ask why!" she interposed.
"Let me beg of you to come back with me to our guests; we shall be
missed--people will talk!"
Eve shrugged her shoulders defiantly, ironically.
"You prevaricate; you won't, you can't be candid! There is only one
other man who can tell me the truth--you make it necessary, I must
go to him."
Lightmark clenched his hand viciously upon the handle of the door.
"I decline to discuss this damnable folly any longer; if you won't
come with me I shall go alone; I shall say that you are ill--really,
I think you must be!"
"Go by all means!" she replied indifferently, "but tell me first,
where can I find Mr. Oswyn?"
He paused, gazing at her blankly.
"Oswyn?"
"Yes. The man who is not afraid to denounce you. If you won't
enlighten me, if you won't clear your--your friend's memory--it may
be at the expense of your own--perhaps he will."
"Oswyn!" he stammered, "Oswyn!"
"His address!" she demanded quickly. "Please understand that for the
future I am independent; I will go to him at once! If you won't give
me his address, if---- Would you prefer that I should ask my brother
for it? That is my alternative!"
Lightmark found something very disconcerting in his wife's steadfast
gaze, in the uncompromising calm, the quiet passion of her
demeanour; his one desire was to put an end to this scene, which
oppressed him as a nightmare, before he should entirely lose all
power of self-control.
He felt himself almost incapable of thought, unable to weigh the
meaning of her words, her threats; the readiness of resource which
served him so deftly in little things had deserted him now, as it
invariably did in the face of a real emergency.
If he could temporize, he might be able to arrive at something more
like a plan of action, to concentrate his efforts in one direction.
He realized that if his wife fulfilled her threat, which was the
more alarming in that it was not an angry one, but had every
appearance of being backed by deliberate intention--if she appealed
to her brother, whose moral principles he estimated more highly than
his tact or worldly wisdom--there appeared to be every prospect of
an aggravated scandal. For if Charles Sylvester (who was
unfortunately among the revellers) declined to furnish his sister
with Oswyn's address, was it not certain that she would apply
elsewhere? And, after all, might not Oswyn adhere to the silence
which he had so long maintained?
He reasoned quickly and indeterminately, vaguely skimming the
surface of many ominous probabilities and finding no hopeful
resting-place for conjecture, finally allowing a little desperate
gesture to escape him.
The music had stopped amid the desultory clapping of hands, and he
could hear people passing outside on their way into the garden. He
turned the handle slowly without opening the door.
"Be reasonable!" he appealed. "There is still time; let us go into
the ballroom; let us forget this folly!"
"You may go," she replied contemptuously; "I have no wish to detain
you--far from it. But if you leave me without giving me Mr. Oswyn's
address I shall ask Charles for it, and if Charles----"
Her husband interrupted her savagely.
"Oh, if you are bent on making a fool of yourself, I suppose I can't
prevent you. The man lives at 61, Frith Street. Now you have it. I
wash my hands of the whole affair."
He opened the door, and she passed out gravely before him, holding
her bouquet to her down-turned face; and then they parted tacitly,
the husband turning towards the door which led into the garden, the
wife making her way into the ball-room, and thence towards the
studio.