Freddy Allyne, as he was called by his friends, whose name was legion,
prided himself upon having established a reputation for levity, when his
real character was that of a philosopher strongly inclined to pessimism.
On no one did he enjoy palming a false idea of himself more than on
himself. Life has many of these jesters whose motley serves but poorly
to hide from others, and not at all from themselves, the fact that this
fool is as wise as some whom he could mention and whom it is the delight
of his soul to play with as he chooses. Between him and the clever woman
who was now standing on the terrace at Drayton Hall there had always
been kept up a particularly active warfare, for Mrs. March was the one
woman in London who did not fear him, and, while this nettled him and
sometimes seriously annoyed him, it fascinated and led him on. A score of
times the wise had foretold a speedy match between these two, who were
never so widely parted at a dinner-table but they pursued each other
without quarter to the very finish of an argument.
Until quite recently Mrs. March herself had vaguely but persistently
assumed that Allyne would declare himself sooner or later, and at that
time had somewhat doubted her ability to deny the man whose brilliant
intellect, generous impulses and fundamentally noble nature had come to
mean more to her than she dared or wished to allow herself to realize.
But some little time before this Allyne observed that a change had come
to pass and that she held herself distinctly aloof from him whenever
they were alone, and had even gone so far as to refuse to be at home to
him unless she was certain that others would be by. He interpreted this
departure as evidence of her feeling that the time had arrived when their
friendship must go further—or safeguard itself by greater restraint.
From a safe distance in the park he had watched her as she and Travers
talked—with not the remotest notion of the subject they were discussing.
When at last he saw Travers raise his hat formally and retire into the
house, and Mrs. March remain leaning against the parapet on the terrace,
he thought the hour had come.
“What? Back so soon?” cried Mrs. March, seeing him coming across the
stretch of lawn toward her. “You do walk fast, don’t you?”
“The church was shut,” replied Allyne, with his customary bantering tone
and approaching close to her. “Yes, the church was shut, and I fed the
swans in the pond instead.”
“But you surely have not walked four miles and fed swans all in ten
minutes?” asked Mrs. March, clearing for action, and keenly appreciating
the relief that this diversion afforded to the strain of the past few
minutes.
“Oh, dear me, no,” drawled Allyne innocently. “You see, I remembered that
they always shut churches after service, so I knew that this one would be
shut. Awfully pretty swans of Poynter’s, too. Ever seen them? They float
about the pond like a lot of duchesses in a drawing-room—and fight over
the crumbs like them, also.”
“And you didn’t fetch my prayer-book, after all?” she inquired
reprovingly. “You _are_ a devoted squire of dames, I must say!”
“It was of my devotion to the fair in general and to you in particular
that I came back to speak,” he began, unable, in spite of his firm
resolution, to approach the subject except with his usual air of
audacious impertinence and frivolity. “You must have observed that I
bestow my society upon you in a way that causes half the beauties of
the gay world of which I am so conspicuous an ornament fairly to die of
jealousy. Well, my dear Mrs. March, I do so because you are the only
woman who does not bore me too much. Point by point as our acquaintance
grew I came to feel that you are as free from disqualifying features as
any woman can be—in short, you know, I’ve almost made up my mind to think
fairly well of you.”
Then followed an interview the like of which it is safe to say has never
been heard before or since. In substance and seriousness it was the same
as Travers’s, for Allyne, too, had been suddenly made independent by
Fair’s investment of a small sum intrusted to him, but it was, on the
surface, only a remarkable example of his characteristic nonsensical
raillery and light chaffing. That the result was the same as it had been
in Travers’s case may be inferred from the fact that when he left her
with a painful effort at nonchalance he turned and came back to her to
say:
“Tell me just one thing. It’s not that grave-digger, Dick Travers, is it?”
Mrs. March jumped at the immense relief of being able to laugh at this
fling, and fairly shouted: “No—horrors!”
“Thank heaven for that!” returned Allyne. “Now I sha’n’t have to commit
suicide.”
With one of his inimitable grimaces, he hurried into the house and she
did not see the solitary tear that trickled down his cheek when he shut
himself into his room and threw a pillow at his image in the mirror,
crying: “You old fool!”
Mrs. March stood where he had left her, and her sense of humor mercifully
prevented her dwelling on the unhappy side of the situation. And it was
not until years afterward, when all three could bear to speak of it, that
she related to both of them what had occurred.
“Truly Englishmen bear off the palm,” she mused after the first shock
had passed. “All other men lay their hearts at a woman’s feet—but an
Englishman condescends to let her know that he doesn’t mind allowing her
to use his name if she has a mind to do so! Well, Baggs, was he there?”
Her last words were addressed to her maid, who had been watching for an
opportunity to approach her mistress for some minutes.
“Yes, ma’am,” she answered. “But I had to wait a little while before the
gentleman came. Here is a letter, ma’am.”
“And what was the gentleman like?” asked Mrs. March, taking the letter.
“He were a dark, foreign gentleman, ma’am, with a black mustache. He
spoke Eyetalian lovely, ma’am—just lovely!”
Mrs. March laughed at Baggs’s discriminating appreciation of well-spoken
Italian, and then remarked carelessly: “It must have been Mr.—But there,
I haven’t told you his name, have I? Did the gentleman send any message
by you—verbally, I mean?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” replied Baggs with embarrassment. “He said as how he
embraced your feet, ma’am, and kissed your footsteps, ma’am, and—beg
pardon, ma’am—the gentleman kissed me, too, ma’am, he did.”
“You mustn’t mind that, you know, Baggs,” answered Mrs. March, smiling.
“You know, foreign ways are different from ours.”
“They are, ain’t they just, ma’am?” assented Baggs, remembering some
other things which she did not think it necessary to report—as well as
a more palpable evidence which she did not mind mentioning. “They is
different, as you say, ma’am, for the gentleman gave me a sovereign.”
“That was good of him,” remarked Mrs. March. “You shall have another
sovereign to put on top of that one. You will find my purse on my
dressing-table—help yourself.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, ma’am,” blurted out Baggs, wondering if her
lady were just right in the head.
“But see here, Baggs,” said Mrs. March as the maid was about to obey her
last command and go and find the purse; “Baggs, you have been doing a
great many confidential things for me lately. Don’t lose your head and
make yourself ridiculous now. I have done nothing about which I might
not have the whole world hear. If I were engaged in anything wrong or
unseemly, do you think for a moment that I would be such a fool as to
make my servants my confidants? No. So remember that if you speak of
my affairs to anyone, you will simply lose your place and your good
character, and not inconvenience me in the least possible degree. Now do
you understand me?”
“I understand you, ma’am, perfect,” replied Baggs, mentally calculating
whether her mistress took her for an absolute donkey or was merely joking.
“I’m glad you do understand—that will do,” said Mrs. March, and Baggs
with a courtesy disappeared into the house.
The instant that she found herself alone Mrs. March tore open the letter
feverishly. She started violently at once, and when she steadied herself
enough to finish reading it she fell back upon the garden seat, where
she sat in manifest consternation and doubt. For some moments she seemed
to be in the clutches of a horrible anxiety which baffled all effort to
decide upon action of any sort. Then she heard voices approaching, jumped
up, tearing the letter nervously into two or three pieces which fell upon
the seat beside her, and ran into the house.