The mellow autumn sunlight streamed full into the bright morning-room at
Albert Gate where Dudley Chisholm was standing before the great
wood-fire with his hands behind his back. It was a handsome apartment,
solidly furnished and fully in keeping with the rest of the rooms in the
huge mansion, which was acknowledged to be one of the finest in the West
End.
Before him, nestling in the cosy depths of her luxurious chair, sat its
owner, young, dark-haired, with soft languorous eyes, her long and
radiant tresses bound carelessly and hanging in as loose and rippled a
luxuriance as the hair of the _Venus a la Coquille_. No toilette was
more becoming than her pale blue _neglige_ of softest Indian texture,
with its profusion of chiffon about the arms and bosom, a robe the very
negligence of which was the supreme perfection of art; no _chaussure_
more shapely than the little Cairene slipper fantastically broidered
with gold and pearls, into which the tiny foot she held out to the fire
to warm was slipped. At that moment, perhaps, Claudia Nevill, who was
exquisitely beautiful at all hours, looked her freshest and loveliest.
She sat there thinking, while the sunbeams shone on the dazzling
whiteness of her skin, on the luminous depths of her wonderful eyes, on
her loosely bound tresses, and on the plain gold circlet on her fair
left hand--the badge of her alliance with a dead lord and the signet of
her title to reign a Queen of Society.
Sitting there among her soft cushions she was indeed a lovely woman, an
almost girlish figure, with a face oval and perfect, a countenance sweet
and winning, a true type of English beauty, who had been portrayed in a
very notable picture by a famous Academician. Acknowledged on all hands
to be one of the prettiest women in London, she was proud and splendid
in the abundance of the power she exercised over her world, which was
enchanted by her fascination and obedient to her magic, let her place
her foot upon its neck and rule it as she would. There was swung for
her the rich incense of worship wherever she moved; and she gave out
life and death, as it were, with her smile and her frown, with a
soft-whispered word or a _moue boudeuse_. From a station of comparative
obscurity, where her existence had threatened to pass away in cotton
blouses amid the monotony of a dull cathedral town, her beauty had
lifted her to dazzling rank as wife of one of England's wealthiest men,
and her tact had taught her to grace it so well that, forgetting to
carp, high society agreed to bow before her. In the exclusive set in
which she moved she created a _furore_; she became the mode; she gave
the law and made the fashion. Thus by the double right of her own
resistless fascination and the dignity of her late lord's name, Claudia
Nevill was a power in smart London, and an acknowledged leader of her
own spheres of _ton_, pleasure and coquetry.
Her ladyship was herself, and was all-sufficient for herself. On her
_debut_ she was murmured at, and society had been a little slow to
receive her; but her delicate azure veins were her _sangre azul_, her
white hands were her _seize quartiers_, her marvellous black tresses
were her _bezants d'or_, and her splendidly luminous eyes her blazonry.
Of a verity, Venus needs no Pursuivant's marshalling.
As she sat gazing pensively into the fire a flush had spread over the
fairness of her brow, her fingers played idly with her chiffons, and the
corners of her lips twitched slightly. Her thoughts were not pleasing.
The man who had been held to her by her magical witchery had been
speaking, and she had shrunk slightly when she heard him. He had not
obeyed her wilful caprice and visited her when she summoned him, but had
waited until morning.
The words he had just uttered, outspoken and manly, had been fraught
with all she would willingly have buried in oblivion for ever: they
awoke remembrances that caused her to wince; they were of a kind to fret
and embitter her haughty life. With his calm words there came back to
her all the shame she burned to ignore and put behind her, as though it
never had been; they brought with them all the echoes of that early and
innocent affection to which she had so soon been faithless and disloyal.
She was cold, though she knew coldness to be base; she was restless
under his eyes, though she knew that so much love looked at her from
them; she was stung with impatience and with false pride, though she
knew that in him she saw the very saviour of her existence.
Her eyelids fell, her white forehead flushed, her soft cheeks burned as
she heard him. She breathed quickly in agitation; at the sound of his
voice the warm and reverent tenderness of long ago once more sprang to
light in her heart.
He watched her, accurately reading her emotions and gazing at the
marvellous change wrought in her. She was superb; she was like a noble
sculptor's dream of Aspasia. He looked at her for several minutes,
while speechlessness held them both as captives.
At last she raised her head, and with a sudden pang of unbearable agony,
cried:
"You are cruel, Dudley!--cruel! I cannot bear such words from you!"
"I have only spoken the truth, Claudia," he replied in the same low,
calm tone as he had before used. Their eyes met. She knew that he read
her soul; she knew that he had not lied.
She--now become keenly critical, scornfully indifferent, and very
difficult to impress--was struck as she had never been before by the
authority, the dignity, the pure accent of his voice, and his steady,
thorough manliness.
He stood gazing down at her with a look under which her dark eyes sank.
There was a sternness in his words that moved her with a sense almost of
fear. The greatness, the singularity, the mystery of this life, that
had so long been interwoven with her own, bewildered her; she could not
fully comprehend these qualities.
Little by little she had been drawn away from him, till between them
scarcely a bond remained. As he fixed his eyes upon her lovely face, it
occurred to him to wonder whether, after all, he would have been so
selfishly in error, so blind a traveller in the mists of passion, if he
had kept her in his own hands, under his own law and love? Would he not
have made her happiness far purer, her future safer, because nearer God,
than they now were, brilliant, imperious, pampered, exquisite creature
though she had become? She was great, she was lovely, she was popular,
she entertained princes, she was unrivalled; but where was that "divine
nature" with which he had once, in the bygone days, believed her to be
dowered? Where was it now?
"Your words are cruel, Dudley! That you should speak like this! My
God! Tell me that you don't mean it!" she cried suddenly, after a long
silence, restless beneath the fixed and melancholy look which she could
not meet.
"Listen, Claudia," he said, still quite calmly, standing erect with his
back to the fire. "What I have just said I have long wanted to say, but
have always put it off for fear of hurting your feelings--for fear of
reproaching you for what is mainly my own folly."
"But you have reproached me!" she cried in a hard voice. "You tell me
this with such a _nonchalant_ air that it has at last awakened me to the
bitter truth--you don't love me!"
"I have spoken as much for your own good as for mine," he answered. "We
must end this folly, Claudia--we--"
"Folly! You call my love folly!" she exclaimed, starting forward. Life
had been so fair with her. The years had gone by in one continual blaze
of triumph. She was the smart Lady Richard Nevill, whose name was on
everybody's tongue; she was satiated with offers of love. And yet this
man had coldly exposed to her the naked truth. Intoxicated with homage,
indulgence, extravagance and pleasure, her conscience had become stifled
and her memory killed; her heart scarcely knew how to beat without the
throbs of vanity or triumph. So she had lived her life in freedom--
absolute freedom. Vague rumours had been whispered in the boudoirs of
Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Gardens concerning her, but with the
sceptre of her matchless loveliness and the skill of a born tactician,
she cleared all obstacles, overruled all opponents, bore down all
hesitations, and silenced all sneers. "Folly?--you call my love folly,
Dudley?"
"We have both been foolish, Claudia--very foolish," he answered, facing
her and looking gravely into her dark eyes, in which shone the light of
unshed tears. "People are talking, and we must end our folly."
"And you fear that the teacup tittle-tattle of my enemies may endanger
your official position and retard your advancement, eh?" she asked,
knitting her dark brows slightly.
"Of late our names have been coupled far too frequently--mainly owing to
our own indiscretions."
"Well, and if they have?" she asked defiantly. "What matters? The
amiable gossips have coupled my name quite falsely with a dozen
different men during the past twelve months, and am I a penny the worse
for it? Not in the least. No, my dear Dudley, you may just as well
admit the truth. Your father has written to you about your too frequent
presence in my society and our too frequent teas on the terrace--he told
Lady Uppingham so, and she, of course, told me. He has asked you to cut
me as a--well, as an undesirable acquaintance."
"What my father has written is my own affair, Claudia," he answered.
"You know me well, and we have hidden few secrets from one another.
Surely we may part friends."
"Then you actually mean what you've said?" she asked, opening her
magnificent eyes to their full extent, as with a sigh she raised herself
from her former attitude of luxurious laziness.
"Most certainly! It has pained me to speak as I have done, and I can
only crave your forgiveness if anything I've said has caused you
annoyance. But we have to face the hard and melancholy fact that we
must end it all."
"Simply because you fear that a spiteful paragraph regarding us may
appear in _Truth_, or some similar paper, and that your official chief
may demand an explanation. Well, _mon cher_, I gave you credit for
possessing the proverbial pluck and defiance of the Chisholms. It
seems, however, that I was mistaken."
He looked at her without making an immediate reply. He was thinking of
what old Parsons had alleged on the previous night in regard to the
mysterious Muriel. Should he mention it, or should he reserve to
himself the knowledge of her inexplicable resolve to effect his marriage
with an unknown girl?
As became a discreet man, who dealt daily in the secrets of a nation, he
reflected for a moment. He quickly came to the conclusion that silence,
at least for the present, was the most judicious policy.
He had once loved this woman, long ago in the golden days of youth, and
their love had been of a purely platonic character. But during the past
couple of years, now that she was released from the marital bond,
Claudia's actions had exceeded all the bounds of discretion. And even
now, when the silent passion which he had struggled against so long as
merely a selfish and vain desire was conquered, he was, nevertheless, to
a great extent still under the spell of her marvellous witchery.
"I regret, Claudia, that you should upbraid me for speaking so frankly
and for thus consulting our mutual interests," he said at last, as,
crossing to the table and leaning against it easily, he regarded her
with a melancholy expression upon his face. "We have been friends for a
good many years; indeed, ever since you were a child and I was at
college. Do you remember those days, long ago, when at Winchester we
were boy and girl lovers? Do you remember?" he went on, advancing to
her and placing his strong hand tenderly upon her shoulder. "Do you
ever recall those sunny afternoons when we used to meet clandestinely,
and go for long walks through the meadows round Abbots Barton in deadly
terror of every one we met lest we should be recognised? Do you
remember how, beneath the stars that sweet-scented night in July, we
swore eternal friendship and eternal love?"
She nodded in the affirmative, but no word passed the lips so tightly
pressed together.
"And what followed?" he continued. "We drifted apart, I to Oxford, and
on into the world; and you, like myself, forgot. You married the man
who was my best friend; but for what purpose? Claudia, let me speak
plainly, as one who is still your friend, although no longer your lover.
You married Dick Nevill in order to escape the deadly dulness of Abbots
Barton and to enter the kingdom of omnipotence, pleasure and triumphant
vanity, as a sure deliverance from all future chance of obscurity. You
became at once the idol, the leader, the reigning beauty of your sphere.
Poor Dick was the slave of your flimsiest caprice; he ministered to
your wishes and was grateful for your slightest smile. He died--died
while you were away enjoying yourself on the Riviera--and I--"
"No!" she exclaimed wildly, rising to her feet and covering her face
with her hands in deep remorse. "No, Dudley! Spare me all that! I
know. My God! I know--I know, alas! too well! I never loved him!"
"Then if you regard our folly in a proper light, Claudia," he said
earnestly, with his hand placed again upon her shoulder, "you will at
once see that my decision is for the best."
"You intend to leave me?" she asked huskily.
"It is the only way," he replied with a catch in his voice. "We have
courted scandal sufficiently."
"But you cannot cast me off, Dudley?" she cried, suddenly springing
towards him and wildly flinging her beautiful arms about his neck. "You
shall never leave me, because I love you. Are you blind? Don't you
understand? Don't you see that I love you, Dudley?"
"You loved me once, in those old days at Winchester," he said, slowly
disengaging himself from her embrace. "But not now."
"I do!" she cried. "I swear that I do! You are jealous of all those
men who flatter me and hang about me wherever I go; but I care nothing
for the whole crowd of them. You know me," she went on; "you know that
I live only for you--for you." Her words did not correspond with the
sentiments she expressed to the woman who had accompanied her to his
chambers. He reflected for a moment; then he said:
"Admiration I have for you, Claudia, as the most beautiful woman in
London, but I think in this discussion we may both omit the word `love'
as entirely superfluous. We are children no longer. Let us face the
truth. Our acquaintanceship ripened into love while we were yet in our
teens. Then in maturer years it faded out completely, the
acquaintanceship being renewed only when, on the death of your husband,
you wanted a friend--and found one in me."
"And now?" she asked.
"Now you have other friends--many others."
"Ah! you are jealous! I knew you were!" she exclaimed in a reproachful
tone of voice, her glorious eyes flashing. "You believe that I don't
love you! You believe me capable of lying to you--to you, of all men!"
Chisholm remained silent.