WALKING Westward to his rooms, he enjoyed once again the same feeling
of exultation, which had been his on the evening of the return from the
seal-hunt. He felt that she was wholly his.
He had done all that was in his power to show her how very much better
it would be for her to part from him and never to see him again--how
much better it would be for her to marry the wealthy and distinguished
man who had, out of the goodness of his heart, expressed to her a deep
sympathy for his, Harold’s, unfortunate condition of dependence upon a
wicked father. But he had not been able to convince her that it would be
to her advantage to adopt this course.
Yet, instead of feeling deeply humiliated by reason of the failure of
his arguments, he felt exultant.
“She is mine--she is mine!” he cried, when he found himself alone in his
room in St. James’s. “There is none like her, and she is mine!”
He reflected for a long time upon her beauty. He thought of Mrs.
Mowbray, and he smiled, knowing that Beatrice was far lovelier, though
her loveliness was not of the same impressive type. One did not seem
to breathe near Beatrice that atmosphere heavy with the scent of roses,
which Mrs. Mowbray carried with her for the intoxication of the nations.
Still, the beauty of Beatrice was not a tame thing. It had stirred him,
and it had stirred other men.
Yes, it had stirred Edmund Airey--he felt certain of it, although he did
not doubt the truth of Mrs. Mowbray’s communication on this subject.
Even though Edmund Airey had been in a plot with Helen, still Harold
felt that he had been stirred by the beauty of Beatrice.
He thought over this point for some time, and the conclusion that he
came to was, that he could easily find out if Edmund meant to play no
more important a _rôle_ than that of partner in Helen Craven’s plot. It
was perfectly clear, that if Edmund had merely acted as he had done at
the suggestion of Helen, he would cease to take any further interest in
Beatrice, unless it was his intention to devote his life to carrying out
the plot.
In the course of some weeks, he would learn all that could be known on
this point; but meantime his condition was a peculiar one.
He would have felt mortified had he been certain that Edmund Airey had
not really been stirred by the charm of Beatrice; but he would have been
somewhat uneasy had he felt certain that Edmund was deeply in love
with her. He trusted her implicitly--he felt certain of himself in this
respect. Had he not a right to trust her, after the way in which she
had spoken to him--the way in which she had given herself up to him? But
then he felt that he had made use of such definite arguments to her, in
pointing out the advisability of their parting, as caused it to be
quite possible that she might begin to perceive--after a year or two of
waiting--that there was some value in those arguments of his, after all.
By the time that he had dined with some people, who had sent him a card
on his return to London, and had subjected himself to the mortifying
influence of some unfamiliar _entrées_, and a conversation with a woman
who was the survivor of the wreck of spiritualism in London, he was no
longer in the exultant mood of the afternoon.
“A Fool’s Paradise--a Fool’s Paradise!” he murmured, as he sat in an
easy-chair, and gazed into his flickering fire.
It had been very glorious to think that he was beloved by that exquisite
girl--to think of the kisses of her mouth; but whither was the love
leading him?
His father’s words could not be forgotten--those words which he had
spoken from beneath the eiderdown of his bed at Castle Innisfail; and
Harold knew that, should he marry Beatrice, his father would certainly
carry out his threat of cutting off his allowance.
Thus it was that he sat in his chair feeling that, even though Beatrice
had refused to be separated from him, still they were as completely
parted by circumstances as if she had immediately acknowledged the force
of his arguments, and had accepted, his invitation to say good-bye for
ever.
Thus it was that he cried, “A Fool’s Paradise--a Fool’s Paradise!” as he
thought over the whole matter.
What were the exact elements of the Paradise in which his exclamation
suggested that he was living, he might have had some difficulty in
defining.
But then the site of the original Paradise is still a matter of
speculation.
The next day he went to take lunch with her and her father--he had
promised to do so before he had left her, when they had had their
interview.
It so happened, however, that he only partook of lunch with Beatrice;
for Mr. Avon had, he learned, been compelled to go to Dublin for some
days, to satisfy himself regarding a document which was in a library in
that city.
Harold did not grumble at the prospect of a long afternoon by her side;
only he could not help feeling that the _ménage_ of the Avon family
was one of the most remarkable that he had ever known. The historical
investigations of Mr. Avon did not seem to induce him to take a
conventional view of his obligations, as the father of an extremely
handsome girl--assuming that he was aware of the fact of her beauty--or
a pessimistic view of modern society. He seemed to allow Beatrice to be
in every way her own mistress--to receive whatever visitors she pleased;
and to lay no narrow-minded prohibition upon such an incident as
lunching _tête-à-tête_ with a young man, or perhaps--but Harold had no
knowledge of such a case--an old man.
He wondered if the historian had ever been remonstrated with on this
subject, by such persons as had not had the advantage of scrutinizing
humanity through the medium of state papers.
Harold thought that, on the whole, he had no reason to take exception
to the liberality of Mr. Avon’s system. He reflected that it was to this
system he was indebted for what promised to be an extremely agreeable
afternoon.
What he did not reflect upon, however, was, that he was indebted to Mr.
Avon’s peculiarities--some people would undoubtedly call the system a
peculiar one--for a charmingly irresponsible relationship toward the
historian’s daughter. He did not reflect upon the fact, that if the girl
had had the Average Father, or the Vigilant Mother, to say nothing
of the Athletic Brother, he would not have been able, without some
explanation, to visit her, and, on the strength of promising to love
her, to kiss her, as he had now repeatedly done, on the mouth--or even
on the forehead, which is somewhat less satisfying. Everyone knows that
the Vigilant Mother would, by the application of a maternal thumb-screw
which she always carries attached to her bunch of keys, have
extorted from Beatrice a full confession as to the incidents of the
seal-hunt--all except the hunting of the seals--and that this confession
would have led to a visit to the study of the Average Father, in one
corner of which reposes the rack, in working order, for the reception of
the suitor. Everyone knows so much, and also that the alternative of the
paternal rack, is the fist of the Athletic Brother.
But Mr. Harold Wynne did not seem to reflect upon these points, when he
heard the lightly uttered excuses of Beatrice for her father’s absence,
as they seated themselves at the table in the large dining-room.
His practised eye made him aware of the fact that Beatrice understood
what he considered to be the essentials of a _recherché_ lunch: a lunch
appeals to the eye; but wine appeals to other senses than the sense of
seeing; and the result of his judgment was to convince him that, if
Mr. Avon was as careless in the affairs of the cellar as he was in the
affairs of the drawing-room, he was to be congratulated upon having
about him someone who understood still hock at any rate.
In the drawing-room, she busied herself in arranging, in Wedgwood bowls,
some flowers that he had brought her--trifles of sprawling orchids,
Eucharis lilies, and a fairy tropical fern or two, all of which are
quite easy to be procured in London in October for the expenditure of
a few sovereigns. The picture that she made bending over her bowls was
inexpressibly lovely. He sat silent, watching her, while she prattled
away with the artless high spirits of a child. She was surely the
loveliest thing yet made by God. He thought of what the pious old writer
had said about a particular fruit, and he paraphrased it in his own
mind, saying, that doubtless God could make a lovelier thing, but
certainly He had never made it.
“I am delighted to have such sweet flowers now,” she cried, as she
observed, with critical eyes, the effect of a bit of flaming crimson--an
orchid suggesting a flamingo in flight--over the turquoise edge of
the bowl. “I am delighted, because I have a prospect of other visitors
beside yourself, my lord.”
“Other visitors?” said he. He wondered if he might venture to suggest
to her the inadvisability of entertaining other visitors during her
father’s absence.
“Other visitors indeed,” she replied. “I did not tell you yesterday all
that I had to tell. I forget now what we talked about yesterday. How did
we put in our time?”
She looked up with laughing eyes across the bowl of flowers, that she
held up to her face.
“I don’t forget--I shall never forget,” said he, in a low voice.
“You must never forget,” said she. “But to my visitors--who are they, do
you fancy? Don’t try to guess, for if you should succeed I should be too
mortified to be able to tell you that you were right. I will tell you
now. Three days ago--while we were still on the Continent--Miss Craven
called. She promised faithfully to do so at Castle Innisfail--indeed,
she suggested doing so herself; and I found her card waiting for me on
my return with a few words scrawled on it, to tell me that she would
return in some days. I don’t think that anything should be in the same
bowl with a Eucharis lily--even the Venus-hair fern looks out of place
beside it.”
She had strayed from her firebrand orchids to the white lilies.
“You are quite right, indeed,” said he. “A lily and you stand alone--you
make everything else in the world seem tawdry.”
“That is not the message of the lily,” said she. “But supposing that
Miss Craven should call upon me to-day--would you be glad of such a
third person to our party?”
“I should kill her, if she were a thousand times Helen Craven,” said he,
with a laugh. “But she is only one visitor; who are the others?”
“Oh, there is only one other, and he is interesting to me only,” she
cried. “Yes, I found Mr. Airey’s card also waiting for me, and on it
were scrawled almost the very words that were on Miss Craven’s card, so
that he may be here at any moment.” Harold did not say a word. He sat
watching her as her hands mingled with their sister-lilies on the table.
Something cold seemed to have clasped his heart--a cold doubt that made
him dumb.
“Yes,” she continued; “Mr. Airey asked me one night at Castle Innisfail
to let him know where we should go after leaving Ireland.”
“Yes,” said he, in a slow way; “I heard him make that request of you.”
“You heard him? But you were taking part in the _tableaux_ in the hall.”
“I had left the platform and had strayed round to one of the doors. You
told him where you were going?”
“I told him that we should be in this house in October, and he said
that he would make it a point to be in town early in October, though
Parliament was not to sit until the middle of January. He has kept his
word.”
“Yes, he has kept his word.”
Harold felt that cold hand tightening upon his heart. “I think that he
was interested in me,” continued the girl. “I know that I was interested
in him. He knows so much about everything. He is a close friend of
yours, is he not?”
“Yes,” said Harold, without much enthusiasm. “Yes, he was a close friend
of mine. You see, I had my heart set upon going into Parliament--upon so
humble an object may one’s aspirations be centred--and Edmund Airey was
my adviser.”
“And what did he advise you to do?” she asked.
“He advised me to--well, to go into Parliament.” He could not bring
himself to tell her what form exactly Edmund Airey’s advice had assumed.
“I am sure that his advice was good,” said she. “I think that I would go
to him if I stood in need of advice.”
“Would you, indeed, Beatrice?” said he. He was at the point of telling
her all that he had learned from Mrs. Mowbray; he only restrained
himself by an effort.
“I believe that he is both clever and wise.”
“The two do not always go together, certainly.”
“They do not. But Mr. Airey is, I think, both.”
“He has been better than either. To be successful is better than to be
either wise or clever. Mr. Airey has been successful. He will get an
Under-Secretaryship if the Government survives the want of confidence of
the Opposition.”
“And you will go into Parliament, Harold?”
He shook his head.
“That aspiration is past,” said he; “I have chosen the more excellent
career. Now, tell me something of your aspirations, my beloved.”
“To see you daily--to be near you--to--”
But the enumeration of the terms of her aspirations is unnecessary.
How was it that some hours after this, Harold Wynne left the house with
that cold feeling still at his heart?
Was it a pang of doubt in regard to Beatrice, or a pang of jealousy in
regard to Edmund Airey?