“I--I’m Evangeline Travers,” I announced.
He said “How d’you do” awkwardly; one could see without a notion what
that meant.
“I’m staying here,” I continued. “Did you not know?”
“Then won’t you have some breakfast--beastly cold, I fear,” politeness
forced him to utter. “No--Ianthe never writes to me--I had not heard
any news for a fortnight, and I have not seen her yet.”
Manners have been drummed into me from early youth, so I said politely,
“You only arrived from Paris late last night, did you not?”
“I got in about seven o’clock, I think,” he replied.
“We had to leave so early, we were going to the Opera,” I said.
“A Wagner that begins at unearthly hours, I suppose,” he murmured
absently.
“No, it was ‘Carmen’--but we dined first with my--my--guardian, Mr.
Carruthers.”
“Oh.”
We both ate for a little--the tea was greenish-black--and lukewarm--no
wonder he has dyspepsia.
“Are the children in, I wonder,” he hazarded, presently.
“Yes,” I said. “I went to the nursery and saw them as I came down.”
At that moment the three angels burst into the room, but came forward
decorously, and embraced their parent. They did not seem to adore him
like they do Lady Ver.
“Good morning, papa,” said the eldest, and the other two repeated it in
chorus. “We hope you have slept well, and had a nice passage across the
sea.”
They evidently had been drilled outside!
Then, nature getting uppermost, they patted him patronizingly.
“Daddie, darling, have you brought us any new dolls from Paris?”
“And I want one with red hair, like Evangeline,” said Yseult, the
youngest.
Sir Charles seemed bored and uncomfortable; he kissed his three
exquisite bits of Dresden china, so like, and yet unlike himself--they
have Lady Ver’s complexion, but brown eyes and golden hair like him.
“Yes, ask Harbottle for the packages,” he said. “I have no time to talk
to you--tell your mother I will be in for lunch,” and making excuse to
me for leaving so abruptly--an appointment in the City--he shuffled out
of the room.
I wonder how Lady Ver makes his heart beat. I _don’t_ wonder she
prefers--Lord Robert.
“Why is papa’s nose so red?” said Yseult.
“Hush!” implored Mildred. “Poor papa has come off the sea.”
“I don’t love papa,” said Corisande, the middle one. “He’s cross, and
sometimes he makes darling mummie cry.”
“We must always love papa,” chanted Mildred, in a lesson voice. “We
must always love our parents, and grandmamma, and grandpapa, and aunts
and cousins--Amen.” The “Amen” slipped out unawares, and she looked
confused and corrected herself when she had said it.
“Let’s find Harbottle. Harbottle is papa’s valet,” Corisande said, “and
he is much thoughtfuller than papa. Last time he brought me a Highland
boy doll, though papa had forgotten I asked for it.”
They all three went out of the room, first kissing me, and curtseying
sweetly when they got to the door. They are never rude, or
boisterous--the three angels, I love them.
Left alone, I did feel like a dead fish. The column “London Day by Day”
caught my eye in the “Daily Telegraph,” and I idly glanced down it--not
taking in the sense of the words, until “The Duke of Torquilstone has
arrived at Vavasour House, St. James’s from abroad,” I read.
Well, what did it matter to me; what did anything matter to me? Lord
Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the
Opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his
abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have
a glass of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to
supper, and various other _empressé_ things, looking at her with the
greatest devotion--I might not have existed.
She was capricious, as she sometimes is. “No, Robert, I am going home
to bed. I have got a chill too,” she said.
And the footman announcing the electric at that moment, we flew off,
and left them. Christopher having fastened my sable collar with an air
of possession, which would have irritated me beyond words at another
time, but I felt cold and dead, and utterly numb.
Lady Ver did not speak a word on the way back, and kissed me frigidly
as she went in to her room--then she called out:
“I am tired, Snake-girl--don’t think I am cross--good-night!” and so I
crept up to bed.
To-morrow is Saturday, and my visit ends. After my lunch with Lady
Merrenden I am a wanderer on the face of the earth.
Where shall I wander to--I feel I want to go away by myself--away
where I shall not see a human being who is English. I want to forget
what they look like--I want to shut out of my sight their well-groomed
heads--I want, oh, I do not know what I do want.
Shall I marry Mr. Carruthers? He would eat me up, and then go back to
Paris to the lady he loves--but I should have the life I like--and the
Carruthers’ emeralds are beautiful--and I love Branches--and--and----
“Her ladyship would like to see you, Miss,” said a footman.
So I went up the stairs.
Lady Ver was in a darkened room, soft pink blinds right down beyond the
half-drawn blue silk curtains.
“I have a fearful head, Evangeline,” she said.
“Then I will smooth your hair,” and I climbed up beside her, and began
to run over her forehead with the tips of my fingers.
“You are really a pet, Snake-girl,” she said, “and you can’t help it.”
“I can’t help what?”
“Being a witch. I knew you would hurt me, when I first saw you, and I
tried to protect myself by being kind to you.”
“Oh, dear Lady Ver!” I said, deeply moved. “I would not hurt you for
the world, and indeed, you misjudge me; I have kept the bargain to the
very letter and--spirit.”
“Yes, I know you have to the letter, at least--but why did Robert go
out of the box last night?” she demanded, wearily.
“He said he had got a chill, did not he?” I replied, lamely. She
clasped her hands passionately.
“A chill!!! You don’t know Robert! he never had a chill in his life,”
she said. “Oh, he is the dearest, dearest being in the world. He makes
me believe in good and all things honest. He isn’t vicious, he isn’t a
prig, and he knows the world, and he lives in its ways like the rest of
us, and yet he doesn’t begin by thinking every woman is fair game, and
undermining what little self-respect she may have left to her.”
“Yes.” I said. I found nothing else to say.
“If I had had a husband like that I would never have yawned,” she went
on, “and, besides, Robert is too masterful, and would be too jealous to
let one divert oneself with another.”
“Yes,” I said again, and continued to smooth her forehead.
“He has sentiment, too--he is not matter-of-fact and brutal--and oh,
you should see him on a horse, he is too, too beautiful!” She stretched
out her arms in a movement of weariness that was pathetic, and touched
me.
“You have known him a long, long time?” I said, gently.
“Perhaps five years, but only casually until this season. I was busy
with some one else before. I have played with so many.” Then she
roused herself up. “But Robert is the only one who has never made
love to me. Always dear and sweet and treating me like a queen, as
if I were too high for that, and having his own way, and not caring
a pin for any one’s opinion. And I have wanted him to make love to
me often. But now I realize it is no use. Only you sha’n’t have him,
Snake-girl! I told him as we were going to the Opera you were as cold
as ice, and were playing with Christopher, and I am going to take him
down to Northumberland with me to-morrow out of your way. He shall be
my devoted friend at any rate. You would break his heart, and I shall
still hold you to your promise.”