"SILENCE GIVES CONSENT."
"Oh, it's you two again, is it?" said Miss Jerrold, in a tone of voice
which might have been borrowed from her brother, as Stratton and Guest
were shown up into her pretty little drawing room, where she sat ready
to preside over her china tea tray with its quaint Sevres cups and
saucers and parcel gilt apostle spoons, while a tall stand was on her
left with its bronze kettle humming and whispering, and uttering a
pleasant coo now and then, as it felt the warm kisses of the spirit
lamp.
Stratton's brows contracted and a look of resentment darted from his
eyes as he stopped short, but Guest laughed and said airily:
"Yes; it is your humble servant once again."
"Well, and what do you want?"
"Hear that, Stratton?" said Guest. "A lady sends you her cards, `At
home, Thursday, four to six;' we go to the expense of new lavender
kids--no, come what may, I will be truthful, mine are only freshly
cleaned--and new hats--no, truth shall prevail! a gloss over from the
hatter's iron--drag ourselves all this way west to pay our devoirs--to
drink tea out of thimbles, and eat slices of butter thinly sprinkled
with bread crumbs, and the lady says, `What do you want?'"
"Of course I do. There, sit down, both of you, and, Malcolm Stratton,
don't put on that wicked, melodramatic frown; it does not become you.
You're a pair of impostors. Think I'm blind? You don't come here to
call upon a poor old woman like--Quick, Percy, my dear boy! Blow it
out; we shall have the room in a blaze."
"No, no, be cool," said Guest, and he made for the spirit kettle, whose
lamp had become overheated, and was sending up quite a volume of flame.
But Stratton was nearer, and taking out his handkerchief, he turned it
into a pad, dabbed it on the lamp, and the light was smothered.
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Miss Jerrold in tones full of relief, "now, that
was very clever. I do like presence of mind. Sugar, Mr Stratton?"
He bowed stiffly.
"Haven't burned yourself, have you, my dear?"
"Oh, no; my glove protected my hand," said Stratton, looking at the
stiff, formal, handsome old body; half amused, half pleased, by the
maternal "my dear."
"Ah, now you're smiling at me," she said quickly. "Sugar, Percy?"
"A good deal, please, to take the taste of your harsh words out of my
mouth."
"There, then--two lumps. I know you take sugar, Malcolm Stratton, and
cream. Well, my dear, I'm obliged to speak out; for you really are a
pair of impostors, and I cannot have my house made a meeting place for
would-be lovers. There--there--there, Mr Stratton, don't pray turn
like that, and look as if you were going to rush away. Mine is a very
delicate position, and I know my brother will be taking me to task some
day about all this. Now, do take my advice; and give it all up--Percy
Guest, if you break that cup I'll never forgive you. It cannot be
matched."
"Would you advise us to go and try our fortunes in Australia, Miss
Jerrold?" said Guest quietly, as he replaced the tiny cup in the middle
of its saucer, after nearly sending it on the carpet.
"No, I would not, you stupid boy. There, I don't mean you at all. I
dare say Edie will be silly enough to let you wheedle her into matrimony
some day--a goose."
Guest touched his breast.
"You? No," said the lady sharply, "Edie. But you two are nobodies. I
was thinking about Mr Stratton, here. Now, don't you think, my dear,
you had better give it all up?"
She held out her hand with a look of gentle sympathy to him, and he
caught it and kissed it.
"Do you think I ever could?" he said, in a low voice while Guest began
to display great interest in the painting of the teacup.
"No, I suppose not," said Miss Jerrold, with a sigh. "It's very sad,
you see, poor girl, she's going through a curious morbid phase which has
completely changed her. All that time she had her ideas that it was her
duty to wait and suffer; and I do honestly believe that if that man had
behaved himself, been released on a ticket of--ticket of--what do they
call those tickets, Percy?"
"Leave," said the young barrister gravely.
"Yes; of course--she would have considered it her duty to go to him if
he had come to claim her; and then died of misery and despair in a
month."
"Had we not better change the conversation, Miss Jerrold?" said Stratton
quietly.
"Yes, of course. I'm a very stupid old woman, I suppose; but Myra does
worry me a great deal. One moment, and I've done, and I suppose things
must take their course. But all this treating herself as a widow and--
there--there--there--I have done. I suppose I need not tell you they
are coming here to-day?"
"I did hope to see Miss--"
"Hush! Don't call her that, my dear. It must be Mrs Barron, or she
will consider herself insulted. Ah, she's a strange girl, Mr Stratton,
but we can't help liking her all the same, can we?"
She held out her hand to him with a pleasant smile and a nod; and Guest
saw his friend's eyes brighten, and then noted his passionate, eager
look, as there was a ring and knock.
But the ladies who came up were strangers; and it was not until quite
the last that Myra and her cousin arrived, the former in black, and with
a calm, resigned look in her pale face, which had grown very thoughtful
and dreamy during the six months which had elapsed since that morning at
breakfast, when the news came of James Dale's tragic end.
And now her eyes softened as she greeted Stratton, and she sat talking
to him in a quiet, subdued way, till the gentlemen took their leave, and
made their way back to Benchers' Inn.
Hardly a word was spoken till they were in Stratton's room, where Guest
threw his hat and umbrella down impatiently, walked straight to the door
on the left of the fireplace, opened it, went in, and returned with a
cigar box, which he set down, and then went back to fetch out the
spirit-stand and a siphon from another shelf, while, dreamy looking and
thoughtful, Stratton sat back in an easy-chair watching his friend's
free and easy, quite at home, ways, but thinking the while of Myra.
"Might have troubled yourself to get the glasses," said Guest
ill-humouredly, as he fetched a couple of tall, green Venice cups from a
cabinet, poured out some whisky, frothed it up from the siphon, and
drank.
"That's better," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Aren't you
going to have one?"
"Presently."
"Presently? Bah! It's always presently with you. I'm tired of
presently. Edie would say `Yes,' directly, and I could get Aunt Jerrold
to coax the old man round if he wanted coaxing. But it's always the
same. Look here; if you don't keep your cigars somewhere else, and not
on a shelf over that damp bath, I won't smoke 'em. Hardly get 'em to
light. Here," he continued, thrusting a cigar and a match-box into
Stratton's hands, "do smoke and talk, you give a fellow the blues with
your dismal looks."
"I'm very sorry, old fellow," said Stratton, lighting the cigar. "I am
not dismal. I feel very happy and contented."
"Then you're easily satisfied," cried Guest.
"Yes; because I hope and believe that if I am patient, my time will
come."
"Not it. It's too bad of Myra."
"No; I would not have her change," said Stratton dreamily. "It is a
hard and long probation, but I can wait, and I love her all the more
dearly for her true womanly behaviour. There, hold your tongue, you
miserable, selfish reviler of one whom in your heart you look up to as a
pattern of womanhood. The joy would be almost greater than I could bear
if she said `Yes'; but she is right, and I will patiently wait, for some
day the time will come."
"There you go again. Presently. It's all very well for you with your
calm worship of your ideal woman, and your high-falutin talk about
womanhood, etcetera, but I love my little Edie in a non-aesthetic,
Christian-like, manly way; and it's maddening to be always kept off by
the little thing with, `No, not till I see poor Myra happy. Then,
perhaps, you may begin to talk.' Perhaps and presently make poor food
for a fellow like me."
Stratton smiled at him gravely.
"That's right--laugh at me. Tell you what, Mal, you're a poor lover.
Why don't you ask her plump and plain?"
Stratton made no reply but sat back smoking, and his friend said no more
for a time. At last, quietly:
"Not such a bad cigar after all, Mal."
Stratton did not reply for a few moments. Then, in a low voice, full of
emotion:
"Percy, lad, you must bear with me: it is all too deep for words. If we
could change places you would do as I do. Speak to her? pray to her?
Have I not done all this till now when her eyes gaze in mine with their
gentle, pleading calm, and say to me--`Bear with me; be patient. If you
love me, give me time till all these sorrows of the past have grown
blurred and faint with distance.' Guest, old fellow, she gives me no
hope. There is no verbal promise, but there is a something in her
gentle, compassionate look which says to me--`Wait; if ever I can forget
the past--if ever I marry man--it will be you.'"
There was a deep silence in the room, and faintly heard came the roar of
the great city street.
Stratton was the first to break the silence by saying softly to himself:
"Yes; wait: the time will come." Again the silence was broken, this
time by a strange hurrying, rustling sound behind the wainscot, followed
by a dull thud.
"What's that?" said Guest sharply. "That? Oh, only the rats. There
are plenty in this old house."
"Ugh! Brutes."
"They only have runs behind the panelling. They never come into the
rooms."
There was another silence before Guest spoke. "Mal, old chap," he said,
"I'm a miserable, impatient beast. You are quite right; I'm in my
ordinary senses once more. Edie speaks just as you do, and she's as
wise a little thing as ever stepped. We must wait, old man; we must
wait."
Malcolm Stratton waited till one evening, when fortune favoured him for
the moment once again. It was by accident that he found Myra alone. He
had heard the tones of the piano as he went up to the drawing room in
Bourne Square, and his heart had begun to beat wildly and then its
pulsations grew to throbs and bounds, as he went in, to find her alone
and playing softly in the half light.
She did not cease, but her fingers strayed on over the keys, and once
more as his arm rested upon the piano, the chords thrilled through his
very being; and when, without a word, his hands were outstretched to
take her to his breast, she sank upon it with a sigh of relief. At that
moment steps were heard upon the landing, and Edie and Miss Jerrold
entered the room dressed to go to some concert, Sir Mark following
directly after, from the dining room, with Guest.
Myra did not shrink from Stratton till all had seen what had taken
place. Then, gravely crossing to her father, she laid her hands
together upon his breast, while he waited for her to speak.
The words came at last:
"Father, dear, Malcolm has asked me to be his wife."
Sir Mark drew her tightly to him, and held out his hand to Stratton.
"Soon, dear, very soon, but it must be very quiet, and not from here."
"Anything, my darling, to see you happy once again."
The butler just then brought in a lamp, and they could see the love
light beaming from her eyes.