"If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?--Or
is thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"
"Well, after all, life has its compensations," says Mr. Beauclerk,
sinking upon the satin lounge beside Miss Kavanagh, and giving way to a
rapturous sigh. He is looking very big and very handsome. His
close-cropped eminently aristocratic head is thrown a little back, to
give full play to the ecstatic smile he is directing at Joyce.
She bears it wonderfully. She receives it indeed with all the amiable
imbecility of a person who doesn't understand what on earth you are
talking about. Whether this reception of his little opening speech--so
carefully prepared--puzzles or nettles Mr. Beauclerk there is no way of
learning. He makes no sign.
"I thought I should never be able to get a dance with you; you
see,"--smiling--"when one is the belle of the evening, one grows
difficult. But you _might_ have kept a fifth or sixth for a poor
outsider like me. An old friend too."
"Old friends don't count at a dance, I'm afraid," says she, with a smile
as genial as his own; "though for the matter of that you could have had
the first; _no one_--hard as it may be to make you believe it--had asked
the belle of the evening for that."
This is not quite true. Many had asked for it, Dysart amongst others;
but she had kept it open for--the one who didn't want it. However, fibs
of this sort one blinks at where pretty girls are the criminals. Her
tone is delicately sarcastic. She would willingly suppress the sarcasm
altogether as beneath her, but she is very angry; and when a woman is
angry there is generally somebody to pay.
"Oh! that _first_!" says he, with a gesture of impatience. "I shan't
forgive Isabel in a hurry about that; she ruined my evening--up to
_this_. However," throwing off as it were unpleasant memories by a shake
of his head, "don't let me spoil my one good time by dwelling upon a bad
one. Here I am now, at all events; here is comfort, here is peace. The
hour I have been longing for is mine at last."
"It might have been yours considerably earlier," says Miss Kavanagh with
very noteworthy deliberation, unmoved by his lover-like glances, which
after all have more truth in them than most of his declarations. She
sits playing with her fan, and with a face expressionless as any sphinx.
"Oh! my _dear_ girl!" says Mr. Beauclerk reproachfully, "how can you say
that! You know in one's sister's house one must--eh? And she laid
positive commands on me----"
"To dance the first dance with Miss Maliphant?"
"Now, that's not like you," says Mr. Beauclerk very gently. "It's not
just. When I found Miss Dunscombe engaged for that ridiculous quadrille,
what could I do? _You_ were engaged to Blake. I was looking aimlessly
round me, cursing my luck in that I had not thrown up even my sister's
wishes and secured before it was too late the only girl in the room I
cared to dance with when Isabel came again. 'Not dancing,' says she;
'and there's Miss Maliphant over there, partnerless!'"
He tells all this with as genuine an air as if it was not false from
start to finish.
"You _know_ Isabel," says he, laughing airily; "she takes the oddest
fancies at times. Miss Maliphant is her latest craze. Though what she
can see in her----A _nice_ girl. Thoroughly nice--essentially _real_--a
little _too_ real perhaps," with a laugh so irresistible that even Miss
Kavanagh against her will is compelled to join in it.
"Honest all through, I admit; but as a _waltzer_! Well, well, we
shouldn't be too severe--but really, there you know, she leaves
_everything_ to be desired. And I've been victimized not once, but
twice--_three_ times."
"It is nothing remarkable," says Miss Kavanagh, coldly. "Many very
charming girls do not dance well. It is a gift."
"A very precious one. When a charming girl can't waltz, she ought to
learn how to sit down charmingly, and not oppress innocent people. As
for Miss Maliphant!" throwing out his large handsome hands expressively,
"_she_ certainly should not dance. Her complexion doesn't stand it. Did
you notice her?"
"No," icily.
"Ah, you wouldn't, you know. I could see how thoroughly well occupied
_you_ were! Not a thought for even an old friend; and besides you're a
girl in ten thousand. Nothing petty or small about you. Now, another
woman would not have failed to notice the fatal tendency towards
rubicundity that marks Miss Maliphant's nose whenever----"
"I do so dislike discussing people behind their backs," says Miss
Kavanagh, slowly. "I always think it is so _unfair_. They can't defend
themselves. It is like maligning the dead."
"Miss Maliphant isn't dead at all events. She is dreadfully alive," says
Mr. Beauclerk, totally unabashed. He laughs gaily. To refuse to be
lectured was a rule he had laid down for his own guidance early in life.
Those people who will not see when they ought to be offended have
generally the best of the game.
"Would you have her dead?" asks Joyce, with calm interrogation.
"I don't remember saying I would have her _any_ way," says he, still
evidently clinging to the frivolous mood. "And at all events I wouldn't
have her _dancing_. It disagrees with her nose. It makes her suggestive;
it betrays one into the making of bad parodies. One I made to-night when
looking at her; I couldn't resist it. For once in her life you see she
was irresistible. Hear it. 'Oh! my love's got a red, red nose!' Ha! ha!
Not half bad, eh? It kept repeating itself in my brain all the time I
was looking at her."
"I thought you liked her," says Joyce, lifting her large dark eyes for
the first time to his. Beautiful eyes! a little shocked now--a little
cold--almost entreating. Surely, surely, he will not destroy her ideal
of him.
"You think I am censorious," says he readily, "cruel almost; but to
_you_"--with delicate flattery--"surely I may speak to _you_ as I would
speak to no other. May I not?" He leans a little forward, and compelling
the girl's reluctant gaze, goes on speaking. It chafes him that she
should put him on his defence; but some _one_ divine instinct within him
warns him not to break with her entirely. "Still," says he, in a low
tone, always with his eyes on hers, "I see that you condemn me."
"Condemn you! No! Why should _I_ be your judge?"
"You _are_, however--and my judge and jury too. I cannot bear to think
that you should despise me. And all because of that wretched girl."
"I don't despise you," says the girl, quickly. "If you were really
despicable I should not like you as well as I do; I am only sorry that
you should say little unkind things of a girl like Miss Maliphant, who,
if not beautiful, is surely to be regarded in a very kindly light."
"Do you know," says Mr. Beauclerk, gently, "I think you are the one
sweet character in the world." There is a great amount of belief in his
tone, perhaps half of it is honest. "I never met any one like you. Women
as a rule are willing to tear each other to pieces but you--you condone
all faults; that is why I----"
A pause. He leans forward. His eyes are eloquent; his tongue alone
refrains from finishing the declaration that he had begun. To the girl
beside him, however, ignorant of subterfuge, unknowing of the wiles that
run in and out of society like a thread, his words sound sweet--the
sweeter for the very hesitation that accompanies them.
"I am not so perfect as you think me," says she, rather sadly--her voice
a little faint.
"That is true," says he quickly, as though compelled against his will to
find fault with her. "A while ago you were angry with me because I was
driven to waste my time with people uncongenial to me. _That_ was unfair
if you like." He throws her own accusation back at her in the gentlest
fashion. "I danced with this, that, and the other person it is true, but
do you not know where my heart was all this time?"
He pauses for a moment, just long enough to make more real his question,
but hardly long enough to let her reply to it. To bring matters to a
climax, would not suit him at all.
"Yes, you _do_ know," says he, seeing her about to speak. "And _yet_ you
misjudge me. If--if I were to tell you that I would rather be with you
than with any other woman in the world, you would believe me, wouldn't
you?"
He stoops over her, and taking her hand presses it fondly, lingeringly.
"Answer me."
"Yes," says Joyce in a low tone. It has not occurred to her that his
words are a question rather than an asseveration. That he loves her,
seems to her certain. A soft glow illumines her cheeks; her eyes sink
beneath his; the idea that she is happy, or at all events _ought_ to be
happy, fills her with a curious wonderment. Do people always feel so
strange, so surprised, so _unsure_, when love comes to them?
"Yet you _did_ doubt," says Beauclerk, giving her hand a last pressure,
and now nestling back amongst his cushions with all the air of a man who
has fought and conquered and has been given his reward. "Well, don't let
us throw an unpleasant memory into this happy hour. As I have said,"
taking up her fan and idly, if gracefully, waving it to and fro, "after
all the turmoil of the fight it is sweet to find oneself at last in the
haven where one would be."
He is smiling at Joyce--the gayest, the most candid smile in the world.
Smiles become him. He is looking really handsome and _happy_ at finding
himself thus alone with her. Sincerity declares itself in every line of
his face. Perhaps he _is_ as sincere as he has ever yet been in his
life. The one thing that he unquestionably does regard with interest
beyond his own poor precious bones, is the exquisite bit of nature's
workmanship now sitting beside him.
At this present moment, in spite of his flattering words, his smiles and
telling glances, she is still a little cold, a little uncertain, a phase
of manner that renders her indescribably charming to the one watching
her.
Beauclerk indeed is enjoying himself immensely. To a man of his
temperament to be able to play upon a nature as fine, as honest, as pure
as Joyce's is to know a keen delight. That the girl is dissatisfied,
vaguely, nervously dissatisfied, he can read as easily as though the
workings of her soul lay before him in broad type, and to assuage those
half-defined misgivings of hers is a task that suits him. He attacks it
_con amore_.
"How silent you are," says he, very gently, when he has let quite a long
pause occur.
"I am tired, I think."
"Of me?"
"No."
"Of what then?" He has found that as a rule there is nothing a woman
likes better than to be asked to define her own feelings, Joyce,
however, disappoints him.
"I don't know. Sitting up so late I suppose."
"Look here!" says he, in a voice so full of earnest emotion that Joyce
involuntarily stares at him; "_I_ know what is the matter with you. You
are fighting against your better nature. You are _trying_ to be
ungenerous. You are trying to believe what you know is not true. Tell
me--_honestly_ mind--are you not forcing yourself to regard me as a
monster of insincerity?"
"You are wrong," says she, slowly. "I am forcing myself, on the
contrary, to believe you a very giant of sincerity."
"And you find that difficult?"
"Yes."
An intense feeling of admiration for her sways Beauclerk. How new a
thing to find a girl so beautiful, with so much intelligence. Surely
instinct is the great lever that moves humanity. Why has not this girl
the thousands that render Miss Maliphant so very desirable? What a
_bêtise_ on the part of Mother Nature. Alas! it would be too much to
expect from that niggardly Dame. Beauty, intelligence, wealth! All
rolled into one personality. Impossible!
"You are candid,'" says he, his tone sorrowful.
"That is what one should always be," says she in turn.
"You are _too_ stern a judge. How shall I convince you," exclaims
he--"of _what_ he leaves open? If I were to swear----"
"_Do_ not," says she quickly.
"Well, I won't. But Joyce!" He pauses, purposely. It is the first time
he has ever called her by her Christian name, and a little soft color
springs into the girl's cheeks as she hears him. "You know," says he,
"you _do_ know?"
It is a question; but _again_ what? _What_ does she know? He had
accredited her with remarkable intelligence a moment ago, but as a fact
the girl's knowledge of life is but a poor thing in comparison with that
of the man of the world. She belies her intelligence on the spot.
"Yes, I think I do," says she shyly. In fact she is longing to believe,
to be sure of this thing, that to her is so plain that she has omitted
to notice that he has never put it into words.
"You will trust in me?" says he.
"Yes, I trust you," says she simply.
Her pretty gloved hand is lying on her lap. Raising it, he presses it
passionately to his lips. Joyce, with a little nervous movement,
withdraws it quickly. The color dies from her lips. Even at this supreme
moment does Doubt hold her in thrall!
Her face is marvelously bright and happy, however, as she rises
precipitately to her feet, much to Beauclerk's relief. It has gone quite
far enough he tells himself--five minutes more and he would have found
himself in a rather embarrassing position. Really these pretty girls are
very dangerous.
"Come, we must go back to the ballroom," says she gaily. "We have been
here an unconscionable time. I am afraid my partner for this dance has
been looking for me, and will scarcely forgive my treating him so badly.
If I had only told him I _wouldn't_ dance with him he might have got
another partner and enjoyed himself."
"Better to have loved and lost," quotes Beauclerk in his airiest manner.
It is _so_ airy that it strikes Joyce unpleasantly. Surely after
all--after----She pulls herself together angrily. Is she _always_ to
find fault with him? Must she have his whole nature altered to suit her
taste?
"Ah, there is Dicky Browne," says she, glancing from where she is now
standing at the door of the conservatory to where Mr. Browne may be seen
leaning against a curtain with his lips curved in a truly benevolent
smile.