THE DINNER AT RICHMOND.
Three days later, at the unusually early hour of nine in the morning,
Victor Nevill was enjoying his sponge bath. There appeared to be
something of a pleasing nature on his mind, for as he dressed he smiled
complacently at his own reflection in the glass. Having finished his
toilet, he did not ring immediately for his breakfast. He sat down to
his desk, and drew pen, ink and paper before him.
"My Dear Jack" he wrote, "will you dine with me at the Roebuck to-morrow
night? Jimmie Drexell is coming, and I am going to drive him down. We
will stop and pick you up on the way. An answer will oblige, if not too
much trouble."
He put the invitation in an envelope and addressed it. Then he pulled
the bell-cord, and a boy shortly entered the room with a tray containing
breakfast and a little heap of letters. Nevill glanced over his
correspondence carelessly--they were mostly cards for receptions and
tradesmen's accounts--until he reached a letter bearing a foreign stamp.
It was a long communication, and the reading of it caused him anything
but satisfaction, to judge from the frown that gathered on his features.
"I wouldn't have credited Sir Lucius with such weakness," he muttered
angrily. "What has possessed him?--and after all these years! He says
his conscience troubles him! He fears he was too cruel and hard-hearted!
Humph! it's pleasant for me, I must say. Fancy him putting _me_ on the
scent--asking _me_ to turn private detective! I suppose I'll have to
humor him, or pretend to. It will be the safest course. Can there be any
truth in his theory, I wonder? No, I don't think so. And after such a
lapse of time the task would be next to impossible. I will be a fool if
I let the thing worry me."
Victor Nevill locked the offending letter in his desk, vowing that he
would forget it. But that was easier said than done, and his gloomy
countenance and preoccupied air showed how greatly he was disturbed. His
breakfast was quite spoiled, and he barely tasted his coffee and rolls.
With a savage oath he put on his hat, and went down into Jermyn street.
He walked slowly in the direction of the Albany, where Jimmie Drexell
had been fortunate enough to secure a couple of chambers.
The afternoon post brought Jack the invitation to dinner for the
following night, and he answered it at once. He accepted with pleasure,
but told Nevill not to stop for him on the way to Richmond. He would not
be at home after lunch, he wrote, but would turn up at the Roebuck on
time. Having thus disposed of the matter, he went to town, and he and
Drexell dined together and spent the evening at the Palace, where the
newest attraction was an American dancer with whom the susceptible
Jimmie had more than a nodding acquaintance, a fact that possibly had
something to do with his hasty visit to London.
Jack worked hard the next day--he had a lot of lucrative commissions on
hand, and could not afford to waste much time. It was three o'clock when
he left the studio, and half an hour later he was crossing Kew Bridge.
He turned up the river, along the towing-path, and near the old palace
he joined Madge. She had written to him a couple of days before,
announcing her immediate return from Portland Terrace, and arranged
for a meeting.
It was a perfect afternoon of early summer, with a cloudless sky and a
refreshing breeze. It cast a spell over the lovers, and for a time they
were silent as they trod the grassy path, with the rippling Thames,
dotted with pleasure-craft, flowing on their right. Jack stole many a
glance at the lovely, pensive face by his side. He was supremely happy,
in a dreamy mood, and not a shadow of the gathering storm marred his
content.
"It was always a beautiful world, Madge," he said, "but since you came
into my life it has been a sort of a paradise. Work is a keener pleasure
now--work for your sake. Existence is a dreary thing, if men only knew
it, without a good, pure woman's love."
The girl's face was rapturous as she looked up at him; she clung
caressingly to his arm.
"You regret nothing, dearest?" he asked.
"Nothing, Jack. How could I?"
"You have been very silent."
"You can't read a woman's heart, dear. If I was silent, it was because I
was so happy--because the future, our future, seemed so bright. There is
only the one little cloud--"
"Your father?" he interrupted. "Is he still relentless, Madge?"
"I think he is softening. He has been much kinder to me since I came
home. He does not mention your name, and he has not forbidden me to see
you or write to you. I should not have hesitated to tell him that I was
going to meet you to-day. He knows that I won't give you up."
"And, knowing that, he will make the best of it," Jack said, gladly.
"He will come round all right, I feel sure. And now I want to ask you
something, Madge, dear. You won't make me wait long, will you?"
She averted her eyes and blushed. Jack drew her to a lonely bench near
the moat, and they sat down.
"I will tell you why I ask," he went on. "I got a letter this morning
from a man who wants to buy my Academy pictures. He offers a splendid
price--more than I hoped for--and I will put it aside for our honeymoon.
Life is short enough, and we ought to make the most of it. Madge, what
do you say? Will you marry me early in September? That is a glorious
month to be abroad, roaming on the Continent--"
"It is so soon, Jack."
"To me it seems an age. You will consent if your father does?"
"Yes, I will."
"And if he refuses?"
The girl nestled closer to him, and looked into his face with laughing
eyes.
"Then, I am afraid I shall have to disobey him, dear. If you wish it I
will be your wife in September."
"My own sweet Madge!" he cried.
All his passionate love was poured out in those four little words. He
forgot the past, and saw only the rich promise of the future. There was
a lump in his throat as he added softly:
"You shall never repent your choice, darling!"
For an hour they sat on the bench, talking as they had never talked
before, and many a whispered confidence of the girl's, many a phrase and
sentence, burnt into Jack's memory to haunt him afterward. Then they
parted, there by the riverside, and Madge tripped homeward.
Happy were Jack's reflections as he picked up a cab that rattled him
swiftly into Richmond and up the famous Hill to the Roebuck. Nevill and
Jimmie Drexell, who had arrived a short time before, greeted him
hilariously.
The table was laid for Nevill and his guests in the coffee-room of the
Roebuck, as cheerful and snug a place as can be found anywhere, with its
snowy linen and shining silver and cut-glass, its buffet temptingly
spread, and on the walls a collection of paintings that any collector
might envy.
The Roebuck's _chef_ was one of the best, and the viands served were
excellent; the rare old wines gurgled and sparkled from cobwebbed
bottles that had lain long in bin. The dinner went merrily, the evening
wore on, and the sun dipped beneath the far-off Surrey Hills.
"This is a little bit of all right, my boys," said Jimmie, quoting
London slang, as he stirred his _creme de menthe frappe_ with a straw.
"I'm jolly glad I crossed the pond. Many's the time I longed for a
glimpse of Richmond and the river while I sweltered in the heat on the
Casino roof-garden. Here's to 'Dear Old London Town,' in the words
of--who _did_ write that song?"
Nevill drained his chartreuse.
"Come, let's go and have a turn on the Terrace," he said. "It's too
early to drive back to town."
They lighted their cigars and filed down stairs, laughing gaily, and
crossed the road. Jack was the merriest of the three. Little did he
dream that he was going to meet his fate.