Fires of One Kind and Another
It was a very miserable morning for Carleigh. It was pretty miserable
for every one, seeing that things were all at sixes and sevens, owing to
the enforced mingling of two house parties; but the young baronet, with
counter emotions tearing things apart deep down in the soul of him,
found it especially so.
Out-of-doors was quite impossible. The heavy clouds were unloading their
burden in a drenching downpour. Some brave one proposed a tramp to
Carfen and a search of the cooling ruins, but found so few volunteers
that the project was given over.
Bridge games were started in both the red and yellow drawing-rooms.
Blissmore, the novelist, had induced Nevill Dalgries to oppose him at
chess, and the pair sat in silent concentration over board and men in
the library.
For a long while Sir Caryll hung about the hall in expectation of a word
with Dr. Dodson on his morning visit; only to learn after something like
two hours of waiting that the medical man had come and gone during that
period of agony in the breakfast-room.
Nevertheless, there was some measure of relief for him in the tidings
that Dodson had pronounced his patient improving steadily.
Julian Archdeacon had told him this, having had it direct from Cecile.
"He doesn't say that Nina's out of danger; but he does say that with a
continued absence of fresh symptoms she very soon will be."
Carleigh sighed and a faint color tinged his wan pallor. He had been
pallid as a ghost ever since he told Miss Veynol about the ring. "If I
could only see her," he muttered.
But Julian thought that quite impossible.
"It's mostly shock, don't you know," he said, "and everything depends on
keeping her quiet."
The relief, small as it was, was not lasting. When he had flung that
final ill-considered speech at Rosamond he had really believed Nina's
case hopeless.
If she got well Rosamond would be sure to learn that what he said wasn't
true, and she would probably hate him all the more for it. Therefore, it
was actually imperative that he have a word with Mrs. Darling at the
very earliest opportunity.
"I mean to ask Dr. Dodson, at all events," he said. "When will he be
here again?"
The Honorable Julian didn't know. He might be over in the afternoon,
and, then, just as likely, he might not be over until evening.
"Waldron is burned worse than was thought," he added. "He never gave a
sign, and yet he must have been suffering torments. His self-command was
nothing short of Spartan."
But at this Carleigh frowned.
"We have thought best to wire for his wife," Archdeacon added.
"His wife!" exclaimed Caryll.
"Yes. Good little woman. Does a lot of slum work in London, and all that
sort of thing, you know. Time was too much taken up to come down with
him."
So here was a measure of relief from another quarter.
"Did you wire for any of Mrs. Darling's people?"
"No. She didn't want any one. We suggested sending for the duke and
duchess. But the idea only excited her. Then we thought of Kneedrock.
He's a cousin, you know, and a sort of next-of-kin protector and
adviser. But she wouldn't have him at any price. Gritty little woman,
Nina."
Dr. Dodson came between tea and dinner, and it was more through good
luck than good management that Carleigh saw him.
He had gone to his nursery bed-chamber, where he had been looking over
the evening things laid out for him, only to discover that the pumps
provided were fully two sizes too large.
Twice he had rung for valet or footman without response--his own man had
been shipped up to town that morning--and was on his way to Nevill
Dalgries's quarters when he encountered an elderly gentleman--bearded,
carrying a small professional-looking hand-bag, and stepping with
professional briskness--turning into the corridor from an intersecting
passage.
He stopped him without the least hesitation. "I fancy you are Dr.
Dodson?" he said.
The physician signified assent, and Carleigh introduced himself.
"I do so want to learn of poor Mrs. Darling," he went on. "I am very
anxious."
"Mrs. Darling," Dodson replied, "is doing capitally. I have every
reason to believe that she will make an amazingly quick recovery, Sir
Caryll."
"That is good news indeed," Carleigh rejoined. "And now there is a favor
I have to ask. I really think that I should be allowed to see her."
The doctor pursed his lips and his eyes shot a question through his
glasses.
"I am deeply interested in her," the young man went on, "and I believe
she would wish it, if you let her know."
His effort was to speak in exactly the right tone, all things
considered. Yet he was wofully uncertain as to just what were the things
he had to consider.
"I will ask her, of course," returned Dodson. "But I must warn you in
advance, Sir Caryll, that Mrs. Darling does not care to see any one.
Aside from the severe shock, she is at present, you know, so very badly
disfigured."
Caryll experienced a deathlike sinking at his heart. Until this minute
he had barely considered this matter of disfigurement. He just couldn't
believe it--couldn't realize it as a possibility.
"How--" he began, and stopped short.
"One side of her face is very badly burned," said the doctor.
A man doesn't like to hear such things about a woman for whom he has
just confessed an attachment. It took a brief moment for Carleigh to
collect himself. Then: "Beg her to see me, please," he asked a little
stiffly.
He saw the physician go, but he had very little hope. It was hardly
possible that she would accede to his plea.
She didn't want "Doody" and "Pucketts." She didn't want even "Nibbetts,"
who, it was clear to him, was usually her help in time of trouble. What
chance then was there that she would see him?
But to his surprise and that of the doctor as well, she did.
Her maid came back with Dodson and took him to the room. And there, in
the half dark made by the drawn window-curtains he saw her lying in the
wide, white bed, her beauty hidden--or was it her hideousness--by
swathing white cloths.
She looked curiously Eastern and uncanny, and his thoughts crowded, and
he was dumb.
But she held out her right hand to him and said: "So nice to see you!
But--what is this I hear they are telling about us? Such astounding
tales."
Then he knew that Rosamond had made no secret of his daring speech and
that the doors and windows of gossip were all set open afresh.
He sat down in a chair close by her side and took the hand she offered,
and held it close to his own.
"I have been telling the truth," he said, with that cool, odd courage
which leaps like a well-trained servant to do the bidding of some men.
"It is only a few days as time is counted, but clocks should be our
slaves instead of our masters. To me it seems an eternity since you so
gave me back to myself that I"--he faltered ever so slightly--"could
love--yes, really and truly--love again. And I do. Oh, Nina, I do! Just
you--only you."
Then, all at once, he remembered, and looked sharply about the room. He
had forgotten the maid. He had not thought of Cecile Archdeacon. They
might be there, somewhere, curtained by the gloom.
"Don't be alarmed," Nina said, amused. "There is no one but I to hear
your confession. Cecile withdrew discreetly before you came, and my maid
parted from you on the other side of the door."
"I love you," he repeated, reassured.
"But you have said openly here, in this house, that we are engaged--that
I had your ring."
For a breath he hesitated. Then: "Let it stand," he pleaded, and bent
toward her. "You are like me, you are sick of it all. The world has
bruised us both--has tried to make outcasts of us both--has blackened us
falsely.
"Let us go away together--to Yukon, to Ceylon, to where you will. Let us
build for ourselves a free life--a new, clean life, out in those free,
new clean surroundings."
He was actually surprised at his own eloquence and at how in earnest he
felt; and how chivalrous. But he was still more surprised at how keen he
was to prove to Rosamond that he had spoken truthfully.
"But I'm disfigured," said Nina behind her white windings. "Horridly
disfigured."
"It will not matter," he declared.
"And I am old. I count for ten years beyond you."
"That is our own affair--our very own affair." He felt the hand within
his quiver lightly and hope rose.
"I really am very fond of you," she whispered.
"Believe me, it is love," he whispered in return. "See how it snatched
us both in the same instant."
Her fingers nestled sweetly in among his own.
"Did Kneedrock tell you more than you told me?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered frankly. "But it made no difference. I don't care
what people say about you."
"But I have played with fire so often--once too often," she added with a
laugh. "Fire came near ending me at last."
Abruptly his curiosity roused. "They say you were safely down stairs,
and that then you turned and went back. Why did you go back?"
"I wanted something."
"What? What was worth the risk?"
For just a little she did not answer. Then, slowly, she reached out her
other hand--her left hand. "For this," she said.
He looked and fancied he must be dreaming, for, lo, there on her
engagement finger sparkled a ring--his ring. The ring that he believed
lost; the ring that he believed no woman would ever wear again.
For a full minute he was too amazed, too stunned, to speak.
"You--you found it!" he stammered at last.
"I never threw it away at all," she confessed. "I only made the motion.
Why should I throw away a perfectly good pearl and diamond ring when the
mere motion of throwing answered every purpose?"
"Every purpose? What purpose?"
"My purpose," and she smiled.
"But I--I don't understand. What could have been your object?"
"I'll tell you," she replied. He could see her eyes quite clearly now.
His own had grown accustomed to the gloom. He could see them so clearly
as to read mischief in them. He wondered whether it was possible that
she was suffering the least bit.
"I just wondered what you would say and do. I knew of no better way to
test a man's whole character than by pretending to toss away as
worthless something that he highly values."
"My whole character?" he echoed. "Did you have to test it?"
"I didn't have to. I wished to. One learns of the real man, then. And I
am so interested in real men."
The thing rather hurt him, but he said: "I suppose you were satisfied."
"My _interest_ was," she answered, and he was clever enough to note the
distinction she effected by the word and the emphasis.
"I'm glad if it amused you," he said, not at all pleased. "Are you going
to tell me what you learned?"
"I'm going to let you draw your own conclusions," she answered. "I told
a man once in India that there was a cobra in the corner of the room in
which we were sitting, just to see what he would say."
"What did he say?"
"He didn't say anything. He acted."
"Was there a cobra there?"
"Of course. We could both see it."
"You were telling the truth then?"
"After my fashion, yes."
"And what did he do?"
"He shot."
"And--"
"The bullet knocked the cobra over. It was bronze."
Then, for the first time since he entered the room, he let go her hand.
"And that satisfied your interest?"
"That satisfied me," she said, and he would have sworn she slightly
emphasized the pronoun.
"There must have been a lot of shooting out there in India," he said
significantly. Somehow he felt terribly vexed.
No, he didn't want to go into any wilds with this woman. He recalled
that reincarnated tigress idea of Kneedrock's. No Yukon or Ceylon. No,
surely not.
She seemed to read his thought. She drew back her right hand which he
had dropped so coolly and, turning a little on her side, she reached out
her left.
"There! Take off the ring and give it to Miss Veynol," she said
cheerfully. "I really can't marry you. Indeed I can't. Don't press me.
Don't even press my hand. It's absolutely no use. Go on, now, and leave
me to sleep."
It was Caryll's mood of the moment to feel relieved. He took the ring
from her finger, thrust it into his waistcoat pocket, and rose. Then he
bowed a little stiffly. After which he left her to sleep.