Something like a week later Lieutenant De Vere, strolling down a street
in London, comes suddenly face to face with Clive, Lord Lancaster.
"What! not gone home yet?" says the former, in surprise, and Lancaster
flushes guiltily.
"No; but when did you come to London?" he inquires.
"Several days ago," De Vere replies, carelessly, and scanning his
friend curiously. Lancaster does not bear the scrutiny well. He is wan
and haggard looking. There is no color in his usually florid face, and
his eyes are heavy and restless.
"You have not finished your visit so soon, I trust," he observes, eying
his friend in turn with a close scrutiny. De Vere has a worn air, too,
as if dull and _ennuyé_.
"Yes, I have finished my visit; I did not care to remain after my host
took such a cavalier flight."
"Ah, indeed!" sarcastically. "But I did not know that I was the object
of your visit."
"You were not, particularly; but I came away because I had no longer
any excuse for staying."
The tone was so peculiar that Lancaster looked at him more closely. He
caught De Vere by the arm a little nervously.
"De Vere, you don't mean to tell me that _she_ has refused you?"
"_She_ is so indefinite. Whom do you mean?" airily.
"I thought there was but one _she_ in the case. Miss West, of course."
"Oh!"
"Has she refused you, I say, De Vere?" imploringly.
"Yes."
"Really?" with something like incredulous joy in his voice, though he
tries hard to keep it out of it. He has been so jealously sure all the
while that Leonora would accept "the goods the gods provided," that he
can scarcely take in the truth now.
"Yes, Miss West has refused me, really. You seem glad of my ill-luck,
Lancaster," in a tone of subdued bitterness.
Lancaster is suddenly shocked at himself.
"Oh, no, no! I beg your pardon a hundred times I did not mean it at
all. I am sorry for you, old fellow, but I can not understand it,
really."
"Perhaps you are dull of comprehension. Take a cigar to brighten up
your understanding."
They light their cigars and walk on together, and then De Vere
continues:
"What is it about the affair that you can not understand?"
"That she should refuse you. I thought she would be sure to accept."
"Ah!" said Lieutenant De Vere, dryly, and then he took several moody
puffs at his cigar.
"Yes, I honestly thought so. Did she give you any reason for refusing
you?"
"Two reasons," De Vere replied, laconically.
"One ought to have been enough," said his friend.
"Yes, it ought to have been, I know," said De Vere, reddening warmly.
"But, you see, I did not want to take no for an answer, so when she
said she couldn't marry me because she didn't love me I wanted her to
take time. You see, I thought she might learn to love me. So, then, to
escape my importunities, she had to put in another reason."
"And that?" asked Lancaster.
"I am not sure that I ought to tell. I think she told it me as a
secret," he answered, thoughtfully.
And then when he saw Lancaster's grave, disappointed face, he said,
suddenly:
"Tell me your secret, Lancaster, and I will tell you hers. Why did you
run away from Lancaster Park?"
"Because I was a coward, De Vere--that is all," bitterly.
"But why? Were you afraid that your aunt would marry you off
willy-nilly to the earl's daughter?"
"Not exactly, although there was some danger of it," said Lancaster,
smiling.
"There was some other reason, then? Come, old fellow, are you ashamed
to confess the truth?"
"I should have been a week ago, I think I might own it now with the
bribe you offered in view."
"What was it, then?" curiously.
"This: I was madly in love with Leonora West, and too selfish, or too
jealous, or too great a coward, to stay and witness your happiness as
her accepted lover."
"Hum! All the happiness you would have witnessed wouldn't have hurt
you," ruefully. "And so you ran away like a coward! What have you been
doing all this while, truant?"
"All sorts of foolish things, I'm afraid. For one thing, I've been
trying to exchange out of my own regiment into one ordered to India."
Lieutenant De Vere was betrayed into a whistle of profound surprise:
"Whew!"
"Yes," admitted the big, handsome fellow, shamefacedly.
"But do you mean to tell me that you were going to throw over the whole
thing, Lady Lancaster, Lady Adela, and all--just because you were
disappointed in love?" queried De Vere, in wonder.
"Yes, I believe I was--though I didn't think much about it. You see, I
was just running away headlong from my own misery."
"I did not really believe you were so romantic," said De Vere, after a
long pause.
"You mean so foolish," said his friend, eying him closely.
"Well, perhaps so," admitted the lieutenant.
"A man must be far gone, indeed, to throw away twenty thousand a
year and an earl's daughter for the _beaux yeux_ of a pretty little
penniless girl. Such luck is not met with every day."
"Leonora is worth it all," said Lancaster, warmly.
"Yes, if one could win her; but then you were throwing all away,
without anything in return. You should have remembered that you would
lose all and gain nothing. What says the poet:
"'What care I how fair she be,
If she be not fair for me?'"
Lancaster said nothing, only sighed furiously.
"Look here, old fellow," said his friend. "Tell me the truth. If you
could get Leonora, would you really throw over all the rest for her?
Would you do the 'all for love, and the world well lost' business?"
An eloquent look from Lancaster's dark-blue eyes was his only answer.
"You would. Then you are far gone indeed. I do not think I ought to
countenance you in such egregious folly. I think you will be cured of
your madness when I tell you her second reason for not loving me."
Lancaster looked at him imploringly.
"Say what you are going to say, De Vere," he said, almost roughly, in
the misery that filled his voice; "but, for God's sake, don't chaff!
Think what I've endured already. I love Leonora to madness. If you
think there's any hope for me, say so at once and put me out of misery."
"Lancaster, I'm sorry for you, upon my soul, but I don't think there's
any chance for you at all. Miss West told me quite frankly that she was
in love with another man."
Lancaster gives a great start. He says, hurriedly:
"Who is the happy man?"
"She would not tell, but of course it can not be you, because she says
it is quite a hopeless passion. He does not love her; she admitted that
with the reddest blushes."
"No, of course, it can not be me, for I am quite sure she knows my
heart. I have shown her my love unwittingly more than once, and been
laughed at for my pains," Lancaster admits, with bitter chagrin and
despair struggling in his voice.
"Poor little girl! It is strange that she should love in vain. It is a
cold-hearted man indeed that could be insensible to so much beauty and
sweetness," De Vere muses aloud. "I think it is some one she has left
in New York, for she and Miss West are going to sail for America next
week, to make their home there."
"Then that ends all," Lancaster says, moodily.
"Yes," De Vere answers, rather gravely. "And there will be one page
folded down forever in both our lives, eh, old fellow? We are in the
same boat, you see. But take my advice, Lancaster, don't let this
episode spoil your prospects. Throw up the India scheme, and go home
and marry the earl's daughter."