It was hot at Woodgreen; but it was hotter still in Mayfair, where the
season was drawing to a close with all the signs of a long-spun-out and
exhausting dissolution. Women were waxing pale under the prolonged
strain of entertainments which for the last week or two had been
matters of duty rather than pleasure, and many a girl who had entered
the lists of society a blushing and hopeful _débutante_ with perhaps a
ducal coronet in her mind's eye, was beginning to think that she would
have to be content with, say, the simpler one of a viscountess; or even
to wed with no coronet at all. Many of the men were down at Cowes or
golfing at St. Andrews; and those unfortunates who were detained in
attendance at the house which continued to sit, like a "broody hen," as
Howard said, longed and sighed for the coming of the magic 12th of
August, before which date they assured themselves the House _must_ rise
and so bring about their long-delayed holiday.
But one man showed no sign of weariness or a desire for rest; Sir
Stephen's step was light and buoyant as ever on the hot pavement of
Pall Mall, and on the still hotter one of the city; his face was as
cheery, his manner as gay, and his voice as bright and free from care
as those of a young man.
There is no elixir like success; and Sir Stephen was drinking deeply of
the delicious draught. He had been well known for years: he was famous
now. You could not open a newspaper without coming upon his name in the
city article, and in the fashionable intelligence. Now it was a report
of the meeting of some great company, at which Sir Stephen had
presided, at another time it occurred in a graphic account of a big
party at the house he had rented at Grosvenor Square. It was a huge
mansion, and the rent ran into many figures; but, as Howard remarked,
it did not matter; Sir Stephen was rich enough to rent every house in
the square. Sir Stephen had taken over the army of servants and lived
in a state which was little short of princely: and lived alone; for
Stafford, who was not fond of a big house and still less fond of a
large retinue, begged permission to remain at his own by no means
over-luxurious but rather modest rooms.
It is not improbable that he would have liked to have absented himself
from the grand and lavish entertainments with which his father
celebrated the success of his latest enterprise; but it was not
possible, and Stafford was present at the dinners and luncheons,
receptions and concerts which went on, apparently without a break, at
Clarendon House.
Indeed, it was necessary that he should be present and in attendance on
his _fiancêe_ who appeared at every function. Maude was now almost as
celebrated as Sir Stephen; for her beauty, her reputed wealth, and the
fact that she was engaged to the son of Sir Stephen, had raised her to
an exalted position in the fashionable world; and her name figured in
the newspapers very nearly as often as that of the great financier.
She had stepped from obscurity into that notoriety, for which we all of
us have such a morbid craving, almost in a single day; and she queened
it with a languid grace and self-possession which established her
position on a firm basis. Wherever she went she was the centre and
object of a small crowd of courtiers; the men admired her, and the
women envied her; for nowadays most women would rather marry wealth
than rank, unless the latter were accompanied by a long rent roll--and
in these hard times for landlords, too many English noblemen, have no
rent roll at all, short or long.
Excepting his father's, Stafford went to very few houses, and spent
most of his time, when not in attendance on Maude, in the solitude of
his own chambers, or in the smoking-room of one of the quietest of his
clubs. Short as the time had been, the matter of a few weeks only since
had parted from Ida, he had greatly changed; so changed that not seldom
the bright and buoyant and overbright Sir Stephen seemed to be younger
than his son. He was too busy, too absorbed in the pursuit of his
ambition, the skilful steering of the enterprise he had so successfully
launched to notice the change; but it was noticed by others, and
especially by Howard. Often he watched Stafford moving moodily about
his father's crowded rooms, with the impassive face which men wear when
they have some secret trouble or anxiety which they conceal as the
Spartan boy concealed the fox which was gnawing at his vitals; or
Howard came upon him in the corner of a half-darkened smoking-room,
with an expired cigar in his lips, and his eyes fixed on a newspaper
which was never turned.
By that unwritten code by which we are all governed nowadays, Howard
could not obtrude by questioning his friend, and Stafford showed no
signs of making any voluntary statement or explanation. He suffered in
a silence with which he kept at arm's-length even his close friend;
and Howard pondered and worried in a futile attempt to guess at the
trouble which had changed Stafford from a light-hearted man, with an
immense capacity for pleasure, to a moody individual to whom the
pleasures of life seemed absolutely distasteful.
One afternoon Howard sauntered into Stafford's room and found him
sitting in his easy-chair with a book turned face downwards on his
knee, and his pipe in his mouth. Tiny, the black-and-tan terrier, who
was lying coiled up on a cushion at his master's feet, heard Howard
step on the stairs and barked sharply for a moment, then glancing at
Stafford, with a reassuring air, coiled himself up again and subsided
into spasmodic growls and whines of welcome; for the mite was fond of
Howard.
"Asleep, Staff?" he asked, as, with a kind of groan at the heat, he
dropped his hat on the table and sank on to the couch. "By Jove, you
have the best of it in here--it is out of the sun, at any rate. How
that dog can lie on a stuffy cushion! I thought you were going down to
Lady Brook's, at Richmond, this afternoon?"
"Was it this afternoon?" said Stafford. "I'd forgotten. I'm sorry: but
my father will be there and will look after Maude."
Howard glanced at the weary-looking face as he helped himself to a
cigarette.
"You're well out of it! A lady who would give a garden-party on such an
afternoon as this, is, indeed, _la belle dame sans mercie!_ Good
heavens! when I think of the suffering the votaries of fashion undergo
in one season, I've no pity left for the benighted Hindoo women who
sacrifice themselves to Juggernaut. Which reminds me that there is a
tremendously swagger function on at Clarendon House tonight, isn't
there?"
Stafford nodded, and refilled and relit his pipe.
"Yes," he said, "I had forgotten it; but Maude sent me round a note to
remind me of it, and, of course, I must go. I envy you, Howard: you can
stay away."
"That's what I can't do," said Howard, with a whimsical smile. "I am
drawn, into the vortex; I am dragged at the chariot wheels of that
wonderful father of yours. I am the victim of a peculiar kind of
fascination which is as irresistible as the mesmeric influence or
hypnotism. I feel towards Sir Stephen as I should feel towards Napoleon
the Great, if he were alive. I follow and gaze at him, so to speak,
with my mouth agape and a fatuous smile over a countenance which I once
flattered myself was intelligent. I am dazed, bewildered by his genius,
his audacity, his marvellous courage and resource. Do you know,
Stafford, I think it would be an excellent idea to abolish the House of
Lords, the House of Commons, the monarchical government, and place the
whole business in the hands of a Board to be presided over by Sir
Stephen."
Stafford drew at his pipe grimly and said nothing, and Howard went on
in the gentle monotone characteristic of him:
"By the way, the mysterious and proverbial little bird has whispered to
me that Sir Stephen will not be Sir Stephen much longer. In fact, that
they are going to make a peer of him very shortly. And upon my word,
they couldn't find a better man for the place; for, unlike some noble
lords you and I could mention, Staff, he will wear his robes and
coronet--do they ever wear them now--right nobly; and for once the
House of Lords will get a man who knows his own mind, knows what he
wants and the way to get it. And if you won't take offence, Staff, and
throw things at me, I should like to remark that his son will prove a
worthy successor. Can you fancy yourself in a peer's robe with a
velvet-lined coronet, Staff?"
Stafford grunted for reply, and there was silence for a minute, during
which Howard turned over the pages of one of the illustrated weeklies
which lay on the table, and suddenly he looked up and exclaimed:
"Have you seen this?"
Stafford shook his head.
"I mean this portrait of Miss Falconer," said Howard, in a low voice.
"It is wonderfully good," he went on, as he contemplated the
full-length picture; "wonderfully like her."
He handed the paper across and Stafford looked at it. It was an
admirable reproduction of a photograph of Maude in evening-dress, and
made a truly splendid picture; and looking at it, one felt instantly
how well a coronet, even a ducal one, would fit those level brows,
beneath which the eyes looked out upon the world with a scarcely masked
_hauteur_ and disdain. A man might well be proud of such a woman for
his future wife; but there was no pride in Stafford's face as his eyes
dwelt moodily on the almost perfect face, the tall, _svelt_ figure in
its long-trained robe. The splendour of her beauty oppressed him with a
sense of shame; and with an involuntary exclamation, which sounded
something like a groan, he let the paper slip from his hand, and
drooped still lower in his chair. The sight of him was more than Howard
could bear in silence, and he rose and laid a hand upon Stafford's
shoulder.
"What's wrong, old man?" he enquired in a very low voice. "You are out
of sorts; you've been off colour for some time past. Of course, I've
noticed it. I've seen the look you wear on your face now come over it
at moments when you ought to have been at your best and brightest. I've
seen a look in your eyes when your lips have been smiling that has made
me--uncomfortable. In short, Staff, you are getting on my nerves, and
although I know it's like my cheek to mention the matter, and that
you'll probably curse my impudence, I really should be grateful if
you'd tell me what ails you, still more grateful of you'd let me help
you to get rid of it. I know I'm an interfering idiot, but I'm fool
enough to be fond of you--it's about the only weakness I've got, and I
am ashamed of it--but there it is."
He laughed with a touch of self-contempt, with an attempt at his old
cynicism; but Stafford understood the fictitious character of the
laugh, and as he leant his chin in his hand, he gave a short nod of
acknowledgment.
"Howard, do you remember that time when you and I were at Palmero?" he
said, in a low voice, and as if he were communing with himself rather
than answering his friend. "Do you remember that Italian we met there;
the man who seemed so gay and careless, the man who seemed to have
everything a fellow could desire, and to be the embodiment of
prosperity and success? Do you remember how once or twice you and I saw
a strange look on his face, perhaps while he was at dinner or fooling
with the women in the _salon_--a look as if he had suddenly remembered
something, as if something had flashed upon his mind in the midst of
the laughter and music and brought him face to face with hell? You
pointed him out to me one night; and we wondered what was the matter
with him--until he fell off his horse that day you and I were riding
with him? Do you remember how, when we had unbuttoned his riding-shirt,
we found the 'D' that had been branded on his chest? We knew then what
was the matter with him. He had been a deserter. The pain of hot iron
had died out long ago, but the scar remained. He was no longer a common
soldier, but rich and prosperous, a social success with, perhaps, his
ambition gratified; but the 'D' was there all the time, and every now
and then, even while he was enjoying himself, he could feel the hot
iron burning into his flesh, and he knew within the miserable little
soul of him that he was a cur and a coward; that, driven by fate,
perhaps by some devilish accident of circumstance, he had lost his
honour and sold himself to the devil."
Howard's face went pale and grave.
"I don't see where the application comes in, Staff," he said. "I don't
see that anything in your case--position, resembles that poor
wretch's."
Stafford rose, his face grim and stern.
"No; and I can't show you, Howard," he said. "Do you think that poor
devil would have bared his breast and shown that 'D' to even his
dearest friend? Good God, man, why do you badger me! Am I to wear the
cap and bells always, do you expect me to be dancing like a clown every
moment of the day? Do I not play my part as well as I can? Who gave you
the right to peer and pry--"
He recovered suddenly from the fit of fury and gripped Howard's arm as
he almost shrank back from the burst of despairing rage.
"Forgive me, old man! I didn't mean to turn and rend you like this. I
know you see there is something wrong. There is. But I can't tell you
or any other man. There are some things that have to be borne in
silence, some marks of the branding-iron, which one dare not show to
even one's dearest friend."
Howard turned aside and began to put on his gloves with great care. His
hand shook and his voice also, slightly, as without raising his head,
he said:
"Sure there's no help for it, Staff?"
"Sure and certain," responded Stafford. "Not even your wit and wisdom
can be of any avail. I won't ask you not to speak of this again; it
isn't necessary; but I will ask you never, by look or sign, to remind
me of what I have just said to you. It escaped me unawares; but I'll
keep a better watch on myself for the future, and not even the
knowledge of your sympathy shall lure another moan out of me." He made
a gesture with his hand and threw his head back as if he were sweeping
something away; and in something like his usual voice he said, with
perfect calmness: "By the way, Maude asked me to tell you not to be
late to-night; to come before the crush arrives. I think she is relying
on you to help her in some way or other."
Howard nodded, and speaking with his usual drawl, said:
"'Awake and call me early, mother.' I will be there in good time. Miss
Falconer does me the great honour of permitting me to flatter myself
that I am sometimes of some slight service to her. I imagine it is
something about the cotillon, concerning which I am absolutely
ignorant, and am therefore capable of offering any amount of advice. I
am a whale at giving advice, and my only consolation is that no one is
ever foolish enough to follow it; so that I can humour my little foible
without suffering the terrors of responsibility. _Au revoir_, my dear
Stafford, until this evening. Good-bye, Tiny! What a selfish little
beast it is; he won't even raise his head!"
Stafford laughed and picked up the dog by the scruff of its neck, and
it nestled against him lovingly, and licked his cheek.
Howard went down-stairs, still putting on his gloves, and as he opened
the door, he swore under his breath fervently.