There's a Lass in Dundee!
Into Nina's flat in Mayfair, one rare August morning, entered Lord
Kneedrock, unannounced. He found her in her little drawing-room
arranging flowers in a vase--flowers not a whit more lovely than
herself.
"Whose?" he asked, nodding toward them. It was his first and only word,
and she had not seen him for two months.
She went him one better--one letter better.
"Mine."
"Who sent them?"
"The florist."
"Who paid for them?"
"Nobody as yet. His bill won't be in until the first of the month."
"Who ordered them?"
"I did. Anything more?" She seemed delighted.
He strode over to an open, awninged window and dropped into an
invitingly cushioned chair. He was still bearded, still rather leonine,
but he was better groomed than in those days in India.
He employed a tailor that was an artist in his craft, and a hair-dresser
that was no less so. After a fashion he was almost attractive.
"I am to infer then that there is no present adoring cavalier."
"No," she answered. "Not since last Friday. He has sailed, I believe, to
offer his services to the Mexican revolutionists."
"Ah!" he leaned back and gazed pensively over his interlocked fingers.
His eyes rested on a bronze in the opposite corner.
"You've never thanked me for that," he said casually.
Nina followed his gaze. "Thanked _you_?" she asked.
"Who else?"
"For the cobra?" For it was the cobra with the history that he continued
to regard.
"For the cobra."
"You mean you were the one that sent it to me? There was no card with
it--no name."
"I picked it up in Calcutta and fancied it might please you. Eve and the
serpent, you know. Rather delicately significant--What?"
She was staring at him, astounded. After all these five years he had
unsealed his lips. She noticed his scarred left hand, recalled the part
that the bronze had played in that, too--and wondered the more.
"Some day," he said in an undertone that had become habitual, "I'll send
you a bronze tigress. That will make the symbolism complete."
"Do--do you so much mind, then?" she asked yieldingly. "I mean about my
amusements."
"Your _one_ amusement?" The sneer, the cynicism was in his tone again.
"Good God, no! Why should I?"
"You seemed to resent it. I--I'll be very good, if you wish."
"I don't wish anything about it. To be candid, it interests me, when I
happen to think of it. You're a type. And I always did like types. The
men you first charm and then devour are types, too--types of the
weakling. They could never win my sympathy."
"No one has ever encouraged me to be different," she said, turning back
to her flowers.
He waited a long moment, his lips parted. Then he said: "No? I dare say
not."
She came to him, a white carnation in her hand, and, bending over,
caught his coat-lapel between thumb and finger. But, noting her
intention, he drew it away.
"No, no," he cried sharply. "Not for me. I am no _petit maitre_."
She was about to retreat abashed, but he gripped her wrist and held it,
and her cheeks flushed crimson. Then he let it go.
"I was looking at the ring," he said. "I see you still wear it."
"I'm still bearing my cross," she returned, "but I've given up hope of
the crown."
"I told you to give it to poor Darling," he reminded her. "It should
have been buried with him."
She made no rejoinder, but stuck the carnation among the gold of her
hair. Almost at the same moment one of the doors was pushed ajar and an
enormous staghound, black to a hair, slipped in and began nuzzling
Nina's hand.
"Another present?" inquired Nibbetts, looking the beast over.
"Yes. A loan rather--my Irish soldier of fortune left Tara with me to
keep his memory green, I fancy."
She patted his head, and into her eyes he looked unutterable things.
"You've bewitched the creature, that's clear," said her caller. He laid
a hand on the hound's back and was answered by a low growl. "Surly
brute!" he added.
"He senses in you his master's rival," she suggested roguishly.
"God forbid!" snarled Kneedrock.
"Tell me about the marmalade maid," Nina begged, sitting down and taking
Tara's head in her lap. "The maid of Dundee."
"I was visiting a man I knew in Tahiti," Nibbetts answered frankly. "And
it happens he has a niece. I ran away from her."
"Why?" Nina asked simply.
"For the best reason in the world," he told her. "I was getting to like
her too well. That's why I'm here this morning. You're a perfectly
incomparable antidote for that sort of thing."
"She's like her marmalade, perhaps--too cloyingly sweet," said Nina,
indifferently.
"Her marmalade?" questioned Nibbetts, his brow knitting.
"Doesn't she make it, then? I can't think of Dundee in any other
connection. Don't all the women there peel oranges?"
"She doesn't." He could be very literal at times.
"What does she do? How in the world does she spend her time?"
"She spends most of it, I fancy, talking to her parrot."
"Her parrot! How odd! Hasn't she any one else to talk to?"
"Only one other--her uncle. And he doesn't understand."
"But the parrot does, I infer?"
"Thoroughly. The Tahitian parrots are very wise little birds."
Nina's laugh rippled. "It talks back, of course."
"Most certainly. One must talk back to her--even if it is only a
parrot."
"And what does she talk about? What do they talk about, I mean?"
The viscount took his time answering. The pause lent emphasis to his
words.
"Of me, mostly, I fancy."
"How dull it must be for them!" Nina observed, and Kneedrock's eyes,
twinkled. He was really amused.
"Mustn't it?" he chuckled. "Damnably! Still, you can see the picture.
Ideal subject for a _genre_ canvas. What?"
"Oh, perfect," agreed Nina, but she didn't smile. She patted the hound's
head and answered the pathetic look in his appealing eyes.
"I'm afraid you've been unkind to her, Hal," she said presently.
"I'm afraid I have," he admitted. "I--" But he thought again and held
his peace.
"Why?" she asked.
"Perforce. As a peer I'm bound to respect the laws of the realm. You
didn't, but I must."
"I thought--But you know what I thought."
"Poor Darling," he said cryptically. Still there was nothing cryptic
about it to Nina. She quite understood.
"I'm very good now," she asserted. "It's hard, but I do try. You must
know how I do try."
"Why don't you keep out of temptation?" he asked, standing up. "Why
don't you run as I do?"
"I've already told you. There's that in me which is too strong for my
will. And the one man that could help me--won't."
He tossed his great tawny head in signal of annoyance. "Tommyrot! You
like it. You've got a cruel streak. That's the whole explanation."
"I haven't," she denied, with rising indignation. "I'm too
tender-hearted. That's half my trouble. When I meet a nice man who is
hungry for my kisses I can't deny him."
"And after you've given you cut his throat or blow his brains out. You
are a national menace. You should be either locked up or banished."
She rose, and the hound beside her pressed against her legs.
"Are you going to Bellingdown?" she inquired, ignoring his outbreak.
"Kitty tells me she has asked you."
"I'm not sure. Are you?"
"Yes--on Thursday."
"Then I'll not," he said decisively. "No house is big enough for both of
us at the same time."
"I'll promise not to eat you," she smiled.
"I'm not afraid of that. You're too devilish careful of your digestion
to undertake it. But you'll be eating some other poor chap; and I don't
enjoy the spectacle."
"But if I promise to fast?"
"I don't believe in your promises. You've broken every one you ever
made me. No, I sha'n't go down. You'll have an open field."
But when Nina traveled down on the appointed day, accompanied by her
maid, the black staghound, and innumerable bags and boxes, Nibbetts was
the first man she met.
"One of the chauffeurs is ill and the other drunk," he explained, "so I
volunteered to fetch you. They'll send a groom down for your luggage
later."
"But I must have a dinner-gown," she complained, "and suppose--"
"We can strap one box on behind, I fancy--if we must."
"We certainly must. I can't pin all my hopes of a presentable first
appearance to a stupid groom's ideas of expediency and expedition."
He offered no explanation of his change of plan, and Nina forbore to ask
him. It developed later, however, that he had already been at
Bellingdown for two days.
The Duke and Duchess of Pemberwell were there, too--as were also Sir
George and Lady Charlotte. Lord Bellingdown was at home for the
shooting, but Waltheof was expected that evening.
"And that's all?" asked Nina, to whom Nibbetts had conveyed this
inclusive _personnel_ of the house-party.
"All at present," he answered. "There may be one or two more to-morrow
for the week-end."
"You don't know who?"
"I don't know who. I'm sorry we can't offer you better sport. The
prospective prey so far is neither numerous nor promising. In decency,
you know, you must keep your paws off Wally."
He was a distant cousin of Kitty Bellingdown and understood the
situation thoroughly.
"I hate that man," said Nina. "Long, black, sardonic creature!"
"That reminds me," said Nibbetts. "What's become of the hound?"
Mrs. Darling glanced back. "He's following. Would you mind driving a
little slower. Tara's out of training."
"You'll be late for tea."
"Bother the tea!" she exclaimed. "I can't have the beast winded. My
soldier of fortune would never forgive me."
Then Kneedrock did something to the gear and the car shot ahead faster
than ever. So they reached the house in ample time, with Tara nowhere in
sight.
"And I'll never be able to replace him," Nina mourned. "The breed's
dying out."
"Like that of good women," growled Nibbetts.
Lady Bellingdown, coming forward in the hall to meet them, overheard:
"Is he ballyragging you again, dear?" she asked, while Nina lifted her
veil for the impending greeting. "He's quite impossible."
"He's ballyragging the sex. We shall have to combine to crush him."
"Women will never combine on anything," was his gruff comment. "They're
too jealous of one another. The fight for suffrage is foredoomed."
Nina and Kitty kissed and said sweet things to each other, and the
viscount turned away with a sneer and a scowl.
"There's always plenty of seed-cake here," whispered the duke, finding a
place beside Nina at tea. "Very good seed-cake, too. Much better than
at Puddlewood. Let me help you to some."
He put a piece on her plate and she leaned over to get something quite
confidential from the duchess, who sat on the end of the lounge nearest
the fire. "Even if I am English I want to be warm," was a _bon mot_ of
her youth, still quoted, and still being lived up to.
"I've the very latest word in the Carleigh affair," she whispered behind
her hand, with a stolen glance toward Lady Bellingdown, who was busy
over the teacups. "Come to my room before dinner and I'll tell you."
Nina nodded, and then the two chattered commonplace for a moment to
throw off suspicion. When Nina sat up again her seed-cake was gone and
the duke was chuckling.
"But where is it?" she asked, perplexity in her violet eyes.
His grace pointed to the floor at her farther side. Tara was lying
there. "He's yours, I suppose. He took the seed-cake at a gulp. Fine
staghound that. I had a pair like him once. I say, Doody, didn't I have
a fine pair of black staghounds once?"
"Yes, Pucketts." That was the duke's nickname from the cradle.
"Everything's foxhounds nowadays. But when I was younger," he went
on--and on--and on.
Nina, delighted to see the animal once more, was caressing his long ears
and mumbling baby-talk to him.
In the privacy of the guest-suite she occupied the duchess smoked one
cigarette after another and told Nina Darling that it was Sir Caryll
himself who had broken the engagement at the last minute, and not the
prospective mother-in-law, as the world had it.
"But why? I thought he was madly in love with the girl."
"Oh, he was. But you see he learned something in a most accidental way,
and when he asked Rosamond about it, she confirmed it with perfect
candor. It seems her own father--Mrs. Veynol's first husband--is a
convict. He is still in prison somewhere in the States.
"The whole story--without names, of course, but going just as far as
they dared go--appeared last week in _British Society_. I don't take the
scurrilous sheet, of course; but my maid does, and she gave it to me to
read. I've been wondering if Kitty saw it."
"Perhaps it isn't true," Nina suggested.
"It must be. That's one thing about those wicked society papers--they're
almost always right. Otherwise they wouldn't dare, don't you know. It's
that that makes them so objectionable."
Nina left her great-aunt and flew to her own room with barely time to
dress. There she found her hostess, already in full dinner regalia,
awaiting her.
"I felt I must see you at once, dear," began Lady Bellingdown. "I've
such a favor to ask you. You can do something for me now that I shall
never forget as long as I live. And I don't know a solitary other woman
that could do it."
Nina's suspicions ran at once to Lord Waltheof.
"If it's--" she began--but was checked instantly.
"You could never possibly fancy. It isn't anything you'd think. It's
about Caryll Carleigh."
"About Caryll Carleigh?"
"Yes. He's been in Scotland, you know, practically buried, and growing
worse--more morose, more heart-sick every day. He's had a fearful
knocking down, and I've been worried about him--no end."
"Well?" pressed Nina, groping. She couldn't in the least see what she
had--or could have--to do with it all.
"I want you to take him in hand--to make him forget."
"I! But how?"
"Here. He's coming. I've just had a wire. He has already started. He
will be here to-morrow for tea."
Nina hesitated for just a second. "I--I'll do my best," she said at
length.