IN CONFIDENCE
A silence fell between the pair.
Seton Darville strode across to the long window, his brows knit in
thought. What Edris had told him held him for a moment breathless.
Then he reflected deeply for a few seconds.
“How long ago was your engagement broken?” he asked at last, turning
to where she was still seated by the fire.
“Last August,” she answered hesitatingly.
“You were, I know, awfully fond of Lionel. You must regret it,” he
said slowly.
She did not reply. He saw that she was not anxious to discuss the
matter, therefore he said:
“It’s a beautiful afternoon. Wouldn’t you like to go for a walk?”
At once she acquiesced, and, jumping up, passed into the bedroom,
while he still remained at the window gazing out across the gray sea
with dark, wistful eyes. His one thought was of that unexpected truth.
Edris was free--free! A thousand times during the summer months that
had gone, as he wandered hither and thither about the Continent, his
thoughts and longings had reverted to her. But she was engaged, he
told himself, therefore there was no hope, even though he was madly in
love with her.
But the barrier was now removed, and she was free!
Darville buttoned Bundle into his little coat and put on his harness.
Then, having put on his own coat, they descended to the promenade, the
tiny Pom yapping with excitement as they strolled across the lawns and
along by the sea in the direction of Brighton.
Edris had never been there before, and was delighted with the handsome
sea-front of Hove. The afternoon was sunny, with just a keen nip in
the wind.
“I love the sea,” she said, pausing to watch the waves beating upon
the shingle. “Living in the country as we do, I see so little of it
except the Channel when we cross to the Continent,” and she inhaled,
to the full, the salt-laden air.
The usual well-dressed crowd of week-enders was passing to and fro as
they continued their walk as far as the West Pier, chatting merrily as
they went. Darville was absorbed in that announcement she had made,
while she, all unsuspicious of the truth that for a whole year he had
loved her, even though he had held aloof from her, regarded his
distraction with some disappointment. She thought he appeared bored,
for sometimes he hardly took notice of her words, his attention,
apparently, being centered upon the pet dog he was leading. When at
Hove, Seton Darville was never seen without the intelligent Bundle,
who was for ever yapping, as Poms do, and straining at his plated
chain.
They returned in the falling dusk and found tea laid for them. It
proved a cozy meal, for, as she sat in the big arm-chair again, her
host waited upon her gallantly, laughing merrily and gossiping about
the last season’s winter sports.
“But it’s really too bad of you, Seton,” the girl said at last, as she
replaced her cup upon the little inlaid coffee-table at her elbow.
“You won’t tell me if you are really going to Wengen or not. So much
depends upon you”; and she looked at him wistfully beneath her long,
dark lashes.
“Why? Surely I’m not so very indispensable?” he laughed.
“To our party you are,” she declared. “You are perfectly priceless
when you try to do stunts ski-ing.”
“And make a silly fool of myself. I suppose they laugh at me?”
“Indeed they don’t. Everybody wonders at your remarkable energy,” she
said. “To ski all day and play antics in the ballroom at night with
only intervals of a few minutes must be a great strain. You’re
wonderful! Everyone says so. You never seem to want sleep.”
Darville laughed as her pretty, gray eyes met his.
“People have told me that before,” he said. “Yes. It is curious how
little sleep I want. Often after the dance I work at my table for a
couple of hours.”
“And you’re always up the first in the morning. I really don’t know
how you do it.”
“The bad habit of late hours,” he declared. “Years ago, when I was
younger, I was one of the night-workers of Fleet Street--the Owls they
call them.”
“Well, Seton, make up your mind and come to Wengen,” she said in a
soft, persuasive voice. “All our friends at the Palace and the Regina
will be so delighted to see you.”
But he would give her no definite promise. There was a reason of which
she was in entire ignorance. He seemed reluctant to go again to
Switzerland. He had been pained at something she had said. She had
wondered what could have annoyed him so much as to cause him to
suddenly remember that engagement in Paris.
Presently, when the heavy curtains had been drawn and the lights
switched on, he ventured to say:
“You spoke of your engagement, Edris. Is it really broken off
definitely?” and he looked straight into her great, gray eyes.
“Yes,” she replied. And he thought he detected a slight touch of
sorrow in her voice.
“Tell me,” he urged in a low, sympathetic voice, “was it at your
request--or his?”
She hesitated.
“At mine,” she responded at last. “I--I could bear his flirtations no
longer”; and a blank look of despair crossed her pretty features.
“I’m not altogether surprised,” Darville remarked. “He was young. Most
men of his age are more or less fickle in their affections.”
“Yes, I foolishly thought that he loved me, but I’ve learnt a very
bitter lesson,” said the disillusioned girl in a hard voice, gazing
into the fire. “When he returned from America in February he asked me
to forgive him. I did so, and we became reconciled. But very soon I
discovered to my dismay that I was not the only woman in his life. For
six months I bore it all in patience, until--well, until one day I
could no longer tolerate his deception, and I told him what I knew. We
quarreled, and--and then we parted,” she blurted forth.
“And I never knew!” Darville exclaimed, holding his breath. “You never
told me!”
“No, because you always avoided me. You made excuses not to see me. I
longed to tell you about it, for somehow I knew in Wengen that you
were my friend, and that you took an interest in my future.”
The man was standing by her, a big, burly, clean-shaven figure in dark
blue clothes. Upon her shoulder he placed his hand, so lightly that
she scarcely felt it.
“Yes, Edris,” he said at last, “I may have appeared rude and
unsympathetic, but I tell you truthfully that I am really your
friend--your devoted friend, who is always ready to advise and assist
you whenever you are in need.”
Raising her head slowly, she looked up at him.
“Ah! I have often wondered,” she said, with a slight catch in her
breath. “Since August I have lived at home in the country, with my dog
Lord Simba as companion. I take him for walks in those long,
interminable country lanes, and I make him my sole confidant. I tell
him everything, and his great big eyes seem to sympathize mutely with
me. You, Seton, are the only person, save Lionel and myself, who knows
the truth.”
“Edris, I sympathize with you,” he assured her in a low, earnest
voice, his hand still upon her shoulder. “Forgive me for not accepting
your repeated invitations, but--well, I believed that you were engaged
and very happy. I--I thought----”
“What?” she asked, her eyes again fixed upon the dancing flames.
“I thought that you were still engaged to Lionel, and that--well, that
I might be _de trop_. That’s all,” he said simply.
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, turning quickly and looking at
him. “You know that ever since we first met in Switzerland I have
always regarded you as a kind and sympathetic friend. The people who
know you are always so loud in your praises.”
“Please don’t flatter me, Edris,” he said seriously. “You have all my
sympathy. You know that. You remember that you introduced me to Lionel
on that night in London when you both spent the evening with me. I
liked him, but I thought he was too young, and perhaps--well, just a
trifle too shallow for a girl of your serious nature and high ideals.”
“Yes, my nature has now grown serious,” she admitted. “I have learnt
my terrible lesson. Yes, Lionel, whom I trusted and loved, is too
young to know his own mind. I admit that I was entirely devoted to
him. He was my idol,” she added in a low voice, full of an emotion she
strove to repress. “But that idol is now shattered and broken.”
“For ever?” he queried, in almost a whisper.
“Yes, for ever,” was the girl’s hoarse reply.
“Poor child!” he exclaimed, scarcely able to control his words, for he
strove to appear merely sympathetic, though his heart was bursting
with love for her now that at last he knew the truth. “How you must
have suffered. And yet I never knew!”
“No. You did not know. But had you known, what could you have done?”
“Nothing can be done to heal a broken heart,” he said blankly. “I
realize now the weeks and months you must have spent in grief and
silence.”
“I--I dare not let mother know. She very often asked after Lionel, but
I was compelled to make excuses why he did not visit us. She
discovered how ill and nervous I had become, and she sent me to Colwyn
Bay, with my cousins, because she thought the sea air might do me
good”; and she laughed grimly at the thought of sea air as a remedy
for a broken heart.
Little Bundle at that moment pawed his master’s leg, an intimation
that he wanted to be taken up, so Darville took his tiny black pet
under his arm, where he sat contentedly surveying their visitor.
“I know, poor Edris,” he said in that tender, affectionate tone he
would adopt towards a child. “I sympathize very deeply with you. I
said nothing, but on that night when I met Lionel I realized only too
plainly the weakness of his character. Quite a good fellow, but
unfortunately lacking in experience of the world and its ways. Like
all young fellows of his age and stamp, he believes himself to be
strong and well balanced, yet his lack of that wisdom which is only
acquired as age creeps on causes him to be unstable--a human sail that
drifts upon every wind.”
Then his hand touched her hair ever so lightly, for with the other he
was holding his pet.
“Edris!” he continued in a strained voice. “We are friends. My age is
such that you might well be my daughter. You are young, smart,
vivacious, athletic, with all the world before you. Place a tombstone
over this unfortunate love-affair, and rise again to live and to love.
Soon you will meet another man who will come into your life--a man far
worthier than Lionel, and more stable and reliable. You will love, and
you will marry, and I will always be your friend--your adopted uncle,
if you wish, or your adopted father.”
The girl said nothing. She placed her chin upon her hands, and with
her bare elbows upon her knees sat looking thoughtfully into the
flames.
“I shall never love again,” she exclaimed at last, in a low, broken
voice. “Lionel has killed all affection within me. I loved him madly.
He was my very soul, and yet he only played with me, and I found it
out when too late. He--he has broken my heart, Seton!”
And she burst into tears, and, covering her face with her hands,
sobbed bitterly.
“No, no, Edris,” said the man, walking to her and placing his hand
tenderly upon her bowed head. “You must not give way like this. I know
how hard it must be to bear, though I myself have never experienced
love. I am one of those hard, bitter men who are proof against your
sex. Some people have called me a woman-hater, and----”
“You’re not that, Seton,” she protested amid her tears. “I know you
are not.”
“How do you know?” he asked, glad that his remark had caused her
sobbing to cease.
“Because you are always so polite and gallant--always so sympathetic
and so merry.”
“I enjoy the society of women younger than myself, I admit, but that
does not prove that love has ever entered my heart, does it?”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t. But----” And she paused, raised her head,
and looked at him with those gray eyes still filled with tears. “But
do you remember what you told me one afternoon when we were smoking
together on the terrace in Wengen--about Elaine?”
He bit his lip. He had, in a moment of foolishness, told her of his
romantic attachment, and he now regretted it. Edris had expressed
sympathy with him about quite a trivial matter, and he in turn had
given her his confidence. But he had not told her Elaine’s name or
rank. He had given Elaine his solemn promise never to mention her name
lest gossip should result and it might reach her husband’s ears.
“Yes,” he replied mechanically, “I remember what I told you.”
“And you really deny that after ten years you have never loved her?”
“Edris, I have never loved Elaine. I tell you that frankly,” was his
quiet response.
“Surely that would be impossible,” said the girl.
“She was only my dear and devoted friend. Ours was purely a Platonic
friendship which--well, which very nearly developed into love, but
happily did not.”
“Why?” she asked, keenly interested.
“Because we mutually agreed to part.”
“To part!” she cried. “Have you parted?”
“Yes. Some months ago.”
The girl said nothing for a few moments, and then asked:
“Why?”
“Because we both recognized that our continued association would be
dangerous,” he said, though, if the truth were told, the real reason
was that great love for the girl before him--a mad passion which had,
ever since the previous winter, arisen within his blank and hitherto
loveless life.
“And you are really nothing to each other now?”
“We have never been more than true, devoted friends. Ever since her
schoolgirl days I have regarded her as my one and only true little
friend. She has often borne with me through my troubles, my trials,
and my disappointments. I used to regard her, because of her level
head and her curious intuition of the future, as one of my own age.
Often I awoke to the fact that she was only a girl--as you are----”
He held his breath. He saw that he had committed a _faux pas_.
“I mean that she was so much younger than myself, and--and yet her
woman’s brain was more acute than my own. I believed my intuition
infallible, but I often had to admit that she was far cleverer than
myself. She could scheme and plot and----”
“Plot? What do you mean? Why plot?”
He had trodden upon thin ice, and he knew it instantly. Elaine had
often helped him to solve difficult problems in his Secret Service
work.
“Oh, well--I--I don’t mean that she could really plot, you know,” he
faltered hastily. “Perhaps I myself was the plotter! Who knows?”
And he laughed.