The Conservatory and the Den.
The fountain had a little tinkling, singing sound, and there was a
delicious odour of flowers, which mingled entrancingly with the shaded
lights and graceful bending ferns. Eileen felt it rather than saw it,
as though all her senses had become one deep appreciation and
enjoyment.
Long afterward, when recalling every moment of that quiet half-hour,
she was conscious of exactly the light, and the scent, and the sound,
and would shrink away from certain hot-house flowers as if they hurt
her.
But for the present there was only a deep content in her heart and a
vague dream of happiness, shedding a soft light over all her future. In
all their intercourse, it seemed to her that Lawrence had never been
quite so fascinating before, and though now and then he seemed to draw
himself up sharply and suddenly adopt a very matter-of-fact tone, she
scarcely heeded it. In truth, though Lawrence meant to enjoy his
half-hour to the full, he had no intention of becoming lover-like; and
when he found her charm growing too much for him, he did indeed pull
himself up with a jerk and try to resist. Yet he could not bring
himself to be sufficiently honest to speak of his approaching departure
for India. He felt there was time enough, and if he told her now, he
might be led into explanations that would be troublesome.
And Lawrence hated anything at all disturbing or troublesome, or in the
nature of an explanation.
Eileen was not blind to his failings, and many a time his callousness
had hurt her, but, like so many good women, she had a boundless faith
in the power of goodness, and believed she could make anything of him
once he loved her. In this she was doubtless right, but she was too
pure-minded and honest herself to perceive double-dealing in others,
and she did not realise that a man like Lawrence might act one thing
and feel another.
_If_ he had loved her, she might have made anything of him; yet—but
what if he did not? Lawrence admired her beauty and respected her
goodness, but he did not love her—he only pretended to himself that he
liked her better than any one else when they happened to be together.
Possibly, if “love” came at will, he would have chosen then and there
to love her with his whole heart and make her his wife. But Love is a
fugitive, wild thing—bold as a robin, and timid as a lark—and usually
none can fit any “why” or “wherefore” to its erratic wanderings. And
hand in hand with Love is usually Pain—pain against which we cry out
blindly, and wrestle and struggle to escape—childishly indifferent to
the teaching of the Ages—that Pain alone is the soil in which grow
Strength, and Courage, and Joy.
In the worst hour of her suffering afterward, Eileen was yet, in a
sense, happier and richer than the man who caused the pain.
But now the fountain tinkled and the lights glowed softly, and the
scent of hot-house flowers filled the air.
“I thought it would be deadly at Omeath,” Lawrence was saying. “If it
had not been for the mater, I should not have come, and, instead, it
has been very pleasant. How often it happens that we start off on some
trip we expect to enjoy thoroughly, and are disappointed all through;
whereas we make martyrs of ourselves and undertake something we detest,
and it turns out a pleasure from beginning to end.”
Eileen looked a little thoughtful. The thought crossed her mind that he
had not, then, came back for her.
“Yet you seemed happy enough here before?” she remarked at last.
“So I was,” he replied at once; “and I had just the same feeling about
coming in the first place. But then I did not know about you, Eileen.”
“But you did this time,” smiling.
“Three years is so long,” he answered unblushingly; “and I imagined, of
course, you would have changed, or got married, or something. Most
girls change very much in three years.”
“Do they?” quietly.
“Yes; but you and Paddy are evidently different. I might have known you
would be.” He turned the subject deftly to a less dangerous theme,
speaking of mutual friends, until a sudden cutting censure brought a
remonstrance to her lips.
He looked into her face and changed his tone suddenly.
“All the black sheep are white to you, Eileen. You are too ideal. You
look at everything through the spectacles of idealism, and expect too
much of life. You would be wiser to try and harden your heart, and care
a little less about everything. You seem to regard most of your
fellow-creatures as possible angels, and all the time we are most of us
rogues and scoundrels.”
“I don’t believe it,” firmly.
“That’s because you don’t want to. All the same it is true. Half the
world knows it, and makes no fuss; and the other half pretends to be
blind for their own satisfaction.”
“You only talk like this to tease me,” she said; “but I like your
honesty. A man who pretends to nothing and is something is so much
nicer than the man who is nothing and pretends much.”
“I am neither,” he answered, “for I combine the two. I pretend nothing,
and I don’t care.” She smiled a little in spite of herself. “You do
pretend something, for you pretend that you do not care.”
He looked into her eyes a moment, with a curious expression in his, and
Eileen glanced away with embarrassment. He was thinking for the
hundredth time how sweet she was, and how—if only—?
He knew vaguely that the man who won her would win a treasure; but he
loved his liberty, and his heart said “not yet,” and so he contented
himself with a look that might mean volumes, or nothing.
And Eileen was satisfied. He had paid no real attention to anyone but
her, merely doing his duty as host to the rest of his guests, and,
undoubtedly, that meant a good deal.
As a matter of fact it was so. Lawrence was nearer proposing that
evening than he had ever been in his life before, and he could hardly
himself have told what deterred him. Perhaps it was a question of the
bandsmen finishing their supper five minutes earlier than was
expected—upon so slight a thread hang the issues of life. Certainly,
leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees, and his whole soul
drawn toward the sweet-faced girl beside him, he felt himself on the
brink of the plunge that would have changed all her life and his, when,
quite unexpectedly, the band struck up in the distance.
At the first note, he sat up suddenly, as if he had been awakened, and
instead of the question trembling on his lips he smiled a little, and
said: “How cruelly the time has flown! I had no idea we had been here
half an hour!” and then they both got up, and he gave her his arm back
to the ball-room.
Eileen felt a queer little tremor that was almost fear, but she only
answered in her usual quiet tone, and smiled up at the partner who came
forward to claim her for the dance.
But the evening was not over yet, and another incident had still to add
its mark upon the unfolding of the hours. Lawrence had still to have
his dance with Paddy.
It came toward the end, when some of the guests, who had a long drive,
had already departed, and the formality of the commencement of the
evening had merged into a more free and easy air for all. Paddy had had
a set of lancers with Jack, and Doreen and Kathleen and their partners,
that had bordered upon a romp, and had made her eyes shine, and her
cheeks glow with radiant enjoyment, for she had the happy knack of
throwing herself heart and soul into the moment, and in this instance
the moment had been full of delight.
Lawrence found her trying to get cool again, while carrying on her
usual flow of chatter, to the amusement of the others; and with a
smile, he remarked:
“I’m sorry to deprive you all, but this is my dance with Miss Adair.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Paddy in alarm. “Do I dance with you next?”
“According to my programme you do.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” frankly. “I was only thinking my hair was
rather untidy, and my face somewhat highly coloured for such an august
occasion as a dance with your majesty.”
“Your hair never looked better,” he replied, “and your colour is most
becoming.”
“Really!” with a gay laugh. “If you keep this up for five minutes I
shan’t know myself. You must be careful, for the high honour of dancing
with you alone is almost sufficient to unhinge my giddy brain.”
“You could hardly dance with me and someone else at the same time,”
with corresponding lightness; “but I’m glad that you appreciate the
honour so thoroughly.”
“Appreciate it! Why, my dear man, I’ve been dying for this dance all
the evening.”
“May you be forgiven,” he retorted as they glided away. Paddy was quite
as good a dancer as Eileen when she gave herself up to it, and, with
such a perfect waltzer as Lawrence, she could not fail to do so, even
if she could not be prevailed upon to enjoy it in silence. So, as they
glided round, she plied him with a string of eager questions relating
to dancing and gayeties in far-off lands.
“You ought to get your father to take you abroad,” he told her
presently! “you’d enjoy all the novelty so tremendously.”
“Should I meet a lot of nice, superior, cultured young men like you?”
“Well, hardly up to my standard,” he laughed.
“Then I don’t want to go. When I can talk to you, and dance with you,
and gaze upon you here, why cross the sea to other climes?”
“I was thinking more of the countries.”
“And have you ever seen anything in all the world so beautiful as the
Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Loch?”
“Yes, many things.”
“I don’t believe it,” stoutly.
“Well, come and see some of my photographs in my den.”
“What! Enter the throne-room!” in mock amaze.
“Yes; why not?”
“Oh no ‘why not’ at all. I’m simply dying to go. I have been, ever
since I can remember.—I’m wild with curiosity to know what kind of
things an animal of your lofty nature collects in its den,” and she
followed him eagerly down a long passage, and through a little
conservatory into the large, airy room known as Lawrence’s den.
When he had switched on the electric light, her eyes grew wide with
interest and admiration.
“Well! if this isn’t just all right,” she exclaimed. “How daddy would
love it!”
“It’s somewhat warlike,” glancing at his swords and weapons, “so you
ought to feel at home.”
“I?—Why?” in surprise.
“Because you are always trying to quarrel with me.”
“Nonsense! I only tell you a few home truths for your good.”
“I hope you find your pupil progressing favourably.”
“Very middling,” with a shake of her head. “You know perfectly well you
have been bored to death nearly the whole evening, because there were
only two or three people you thought worth talking to.”
“And if so—it is hardly my fault.”
“Why, of course it is! The people were just as nice as you,
really—rather nicer in fact—the only difference is a mere question of
having studied Browning, and Darwin, and a lot of musty old German and
French writers, whom, I’ll be bound to say, you don’t half understand.”
“Possibly not. But they have a way of developing the mind.”
“Developing the mind!” scornfully. “What’s the matter with my mind?—it
develops itself. I don’t pore over musty books.”
“Perhaps you are naturally more gifted,” with light satire.
“Sarcasm is wasted on me,” she retorted. “It flows off like water from
a duck’s back. Why not tell me straight I’m an ignoramus? Just as I
tell you straight that all your learning and experience does not give
you the right to think yourself so superior to other people, and give
yourself such airs.”
“You are very outspoken,” smiling a little in spite of himself.
“Yes; but I can take plain speaking, too, so if you want to have your
revenge, fire away. I know that I’ve got a snub nose and no complexion,
and am always more or less untidy, because I’ve been told so often, but
you can tell me again if you like.”
“I’d rather set you an example in good manners.”
“That’s good,” appreciating it at once.
“Besides,” he added slyly, “I don’t see that it isn’t just as bad to be
proud of a snub nose and untidiness, as of a beautiful nose or book
learning, and from the way you speak you positively revel in them.”
“You have me again,” she replied frankly. “I guess we’ll be friends for
ten minutes and you shall show me your views.”
They sat down, and he opened an enormous album, but after the first few
pages she looked up at him entreatingly, and said with a delightful
little air of pathos:
“I’m so sorry, but if you only knew how I hate sitting still. I—I’m
just dying to prowl round, and look at all the queer things on the
walls.”
He closed the book with a laugh, and she sprang up at once, saying:
“I’ll look at the views when I’m old and rheumaticky. You must save
them for me,” and then she went into raptures over a beautiful case of
foreign butterflies, afterward fingering with delight his guns and
swords.
“You ought to have been a man,” he said almost regretfully.
“Why, of course I ought. I’ve known that ever since they put Jack in
trousers, and not me. But I guess I’ll have to stay a woman now to the
end of the chapter, and make the best of it.”
“Then you’re sorry?” he asked, with interest.
“Sorry!” she repeated impressively. “Oh, yes, I’m that all right, but I
don’t believe in crying over spilt milk.”
He watched her silently a moment.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you haven’t got a future, Paddy,” he remarked.
“There’s something about you that has the ring of achievement—only
there’s not much room here,” signifying the surrounding neighbourhood.
“Quite room enough,” picking up a Mauser pistol and examining it with
the eye of a connoisseur. “Can’t I ride straight, and shoot straight,
and sail anything with a rag and a mast—that’s achievement enough for
me. What more do you want?”
He drew a bow at a venture, out of idle curiosity. “I wonder where the
opposite sex will come in? Don’t you want to have adoring males at your
feet by and by!—most women do.”
She looked frankly into his eyes with a gay laugh. “Not me! I haven’t
time. I’ll leave that for Eileen. Of course, if your lordship—!” with a
sudden irresistible twinkle.
He could not help laughing, and watched her with growing interest as
she wandered on from one curio to another, until she came to his
writing table. Here she came to a sudden standstill, and a little
involuntary exclamation escaped her. Lawrence looked past her quickly,
to find she was gazing with wide eyes, and a strangely mingled
expression, at the beautiful full-length portrait of Gwendoline Carew,
noticeably in the position of honour on his table.