Don Carlos took his leave a few minutes later, leaving Myra and Tony
alone together, and again Myra could not make up her mind whether or
not to tell her fiancé what had happened. It happened that Tony, as
soon as they were alone, became particularly sentimental and wanted to
kiss her--a fact which somehow seemed to make the situation still more
difficult and complicated.
"I don't want to be kissed, Tony," Myra objected, when her lover tried
to embrace her. "I feel as if I never want to be kissed again, and I
don't want any love-making. Leave me alone!"
"You certainly are in a queer mood to-day, Myra," Tony commented.
"What has upset you, darling? You were quite rude to poor old Don
Carlos, and now you are snubbing me. What's the matter, old thing?"
"Oh, Tony, my dear, I--I don't know just what is the matter with me,
and I don't know what to do," exclaimed Myra, laughing tremulously and
feeling inclined to give way to tears. "I don't understand myself.
Oh, why are you so stupid? Why don't you make love to me and force me
to kiss you? Why don't you kiss and kiss me against my will?"
"Why, hang it all, Myra, I've just been trying to make love to you and
asking you to give me a kiss, and you wouldn't. Now--oh, dash it all,
I don't know what to make of you, my dear. You are a most puzzling
girl!"
"And you are the most exasperatingly dull man," Myra retorted, still
half-laughing, half-crying. "Oh, Tony, my dear, take care of me and
love me terribly if you want to keep me. Hold me fast and grapple me
to you with hooks of steel, or you will lose me."
She almost hurled herself into Tony's arms, buried her face in his
shoulder, and burst into tears. Tony did not know what to make of it
at all, and he felt utterly helpless. Agitatedly he patted her on the
back and stroked her hair.
"Myra, for heaven's sake don't cry," he said, in what was intended to
be a soothing tone. "You make me feel so bally awful. I've never seen
you crying before, and I can't make out what is the matter. What on
earth has upset you, darling? You're quite hysterical. Hadn't I
better ring for your maid, dear?"
Poor Tony did not realise how sadly he was blundering, how sorely he
was failing in an emergency.
"Oh, why can't you understand!" burst out Myra passionately. "Why
can't you love in the right way? Don't pat my head and my back as if I
were a pet dog, you ninny! Tony, I--I--oh, I can't bear it!"
She broke from him and rushed from the room, banging the door behind
her.
"Well I'm sunk!" muttered Tony, distractedly running his fingers
through his sandy hair. "What on earth is a fellow to do in these
circumstances? I hope to goodness Myra won't carry on like this after
we are married, or I shall never know where I am. I wonder what upset
her?"
Troubled in mind, he took his departure, and on his way to his Club he
was fortunate enough to meet Lady Fermanagh.
"My dear Tony, all women are more or less creatures of impulse, liable
to do the most unexpected and quixotic things," her worldly-wise
Ladyship told him, when he had explained what had happened and asked
her to advise him what to do. "That is what makes us so interesting.
We do not understand ourselves, and if men understood us we should
cease to interest or attract them."
"Yes, I suppose so, Lady Fermanagh," agreed Tony, with a disconsolate
shake of his head. "But it would be rather awful to marry a woman who
puzzled one all the time. I couldn't make Myra out at all to-day, and
can't think what can have upset her."
"Remember, dear boy, that Myra is Irish and has the Celtic
temperament," said Lady Fermanagh. "Probably someone, or something,
had upset her before you called, and you had to suffer for it."
"It wasn't only I who had to suffer," remarked Tony. "Poor old Carlos
was there when I blew in, and Myra was snubbing him unmercifully.
Between ourselves, Lady Fermanagh, Myra was positively insulting. Don
Carlos took it rather well, but I fancy he was upset all the same."
"H'm! So Don Carlos is back?" commented her ladyship, with an
inscrutable smile. "That may explain matters. Perhaps it was he who
was responsible for Myra's tantrums. But don't worry, Tony. Myra will
probably be particularly nice to you if you see her to-night."
"I'm not exactly worried, Lady Fermanagh, but I'm very puzzled," said
Standish. "I don't suppose Don Carlos had anything to do with the
matter, really, although he did say chaffingly that he had been making
love to Myra again and said she was afraid of him. But after he had
gone Myra seemed uncommonly annoyed with me for some reason or other,
and--er--well, a fellow doesn't know exactly what to do in the
circumstances, and I thought you'd be able to give me advice."
"My advice to you, Tony, is to make ardent love to Myra, to woo her as
if she had not already promised to marry you," Lady Fermanagh
responded. "It is just possible, my dear Tony, if you will forgive my
suggesting it, that you have not been playing the part of devoted lover
wholeheartedly enough."
"Perhaps so," said Tony, rather ruefully. "Er--the difficulty is that
when I try to talk and make love like the chaps do in novels and plays,
Myra laughs at me and tells me not to be sloppy. I say, Lady
Fermanagh, don't tell Myra I've been talking to you about her. She
might be angry. But if you can size things up and give me a hint later
as to why she was vexed with me this afternoon I'll be tremendously
obliged."
Lady Fermanagh had a very shrewd idea that she could have told him
there and then who was the cause of the trouble, remembering well
Myra's boast that she would make Don Carlos fall in love with her, and
her resentment at his lack of courtesy in going off to Spain without a
word of farewell.
"Yes, Tony, I'll do my best to 'size things up,' as you so gracefully
put it, and may be able to drop you a hint later," she said.
She did some hard thinking as she drove home, where she arrived to find
Myra seated listlessly in an armchair by the fire, an unlighted
cigarette between her fingers, and a brooding expression in her blue
eyes.
"No, there's nothing really the matter, auntie, and I'm quite well,"
Myra said, in answer to her ladyship's questions; "but--oh, I can't
explain, but I feel fed up with everything. I don't think I shall go
to the Cavendish's dance to-night."
"What, or who, has made you suddenly feel 'fed up with everything,' as
you put it?" inquired Lady Fermanagh. "You seemed in quite good
spirits at lunch-time. I noticed Don Carlos de Ruiz's card in the
salver in the hall as I came in. Was it he, by any chance, who upset
you, Myra?"
Myra's fair face blushed hotly, and she hesitated before replying.
Then, impulsively, she decided to tell her aunt everything, and did so.
Lady Fermanagh listened in grave--almost grim--silence, and with a
troubled look in her fine eyes.
"My dear, do you realise that you have brought this on yourself?" she
asked quietly, when she had heard Myra out. "I warned you at
Auchinleven that you would be playing with fire, and that it was
extremely dangerous to trifle with a Spaniard. You deliberately set
yourself out to play the part of siren, to make Don Carlos fall in love
with you, and----"
"He had deliberately laid himself out before that to make me fall in
love with him, and pleaded that he was only amusing himself when he was
challenged," interrupted Myra. "That was an insult, and I wanted my
revenge. If he did not expect me to take him seriously, he had no
right to take me seriously, no right to take advantage and to kiss me
as he did this afternoon. Now you are throwing the blame on me, just
as he did himself! Why should there be one law for the man and another
for the woman? It isn't fair!"
"My dear Myra, do try to preserve some sense of proportion," said Lady
Fermanagh gently. "Admittedly it was quite wrong of Don Carlos to make
passionate love to you, knowing you were betrothed to Tony, but, as I
have told you repeatedly, he was probably only following the custom of
his race and did not expect to be taken seriously in the first
instance."
"And is it an unheard-of thing in Spain for a betrothed girl to play
the part of coquette, and to flirt with the men who make love to her?"
interposed Myra again.
"No, no, not at all, but I need hardly remind you, Myra, that in
England that sort of thing simply 'isn't done.' Besides, yours was no
mere flirtation. You set out to fascinate and captivate Don Carlos, to
make him fall madly in love with you, and you seem to have succeeded.
You admit you challenged him to kiss you----"
"He had no right to take what I said to Tony as a challenge, although I
confess I said it to tantalise him."
"Humph! If I were your age, as beautiful and attractive as you, and I
had dared a man to kiss me, I should feel slighted, to say the least of
it, and regard him as a poltroon, if he failed to take up my
challenge," commented Lady Fermanagh drily. "You can't mean to say you
did not expect Don Carlos to carry out the threat or promise he made in
his note, particularly as you made no protest against his having
entered your bedroom?"
"I--er--I don't know what I expected," answered Myra, rather weakly.
"I mean, I did not intend to give him the opportunity to carry out his
threat. And I thought it best to say nothing about the note, because I
was afraid to risk a scandal, and I was somehow afraid that Don Carlos
would turn the tables on me. Now I have a good mind to tell Tony, and
to tell him what happened to-day, and leave him to deal with Don
Carlos."
"Do, by all means, my dear--if you want to make shipwreck of your
life," retorted Lady Fermanagh, sardonically. "Tony will be flattered
to find you were playing him off against Don Carlos at Auchinleven.
And perhaps not! He may decide, on reflection, that a girl who makes
love to another man, or, if you prefer it, encourages another man to
make love to her, during her engagement and in the house of her fiancé,
might do something of the same sort after marriage in the house of her
husband."
"Tony wouldn't be such a beast," exclaimed Myra. "If he dared to blame
me, I'd break off my engagement and marry Don Carlos, if only to spite
him."
"Humph! And supposing, after breaking off your engagement, you found
that Don Carlos did not want to marry you, what a fool you'd look and
feel!" responded her aunt. "My dear Myra, don't you realise that if
the facts were known the world would condemn you for attempting to play
fast and loose with both Tony Standish and Don Carlos de Ruiz, and the
general verdict would be that it served you right to be left in the
lurch. Tony would be quite justified in throwing you over, and by the
time the gossips had finished your reputation would be--well, rather
the worse for wear."
"Aunt Clarissa, you don't really think Tony would throw me over if he
knew?" asked Myra anxiously, after a thoughtful pause. "Why, I told
Tony at Auchinleven that I intended to flirt with Don Carlos and make
him fall in love with me, but he would not take me seriously. I told
him I meant it and was in earnest, but he only laughed. It is really
all his fault. And he was so obtuse this afternoon. Surely he might
have guessed what had happened."
Lady Fermanagh sat silent for a full minute, then suddenly she rose and
laid her hands on Myra's shoulders.
"Myra Rostrevor, answer me truthfully," she commanded, with a searching
glance. "Are you, or are you not, in love with Don Carlos?"
"I--I don't know," Myra answered, shaking her head distractedly. "I
think I hate him, but if I could believe he was really sincere and in
earnest I think I should love him. If I had been tempting, teasing,
and tantalising him to-day, as I did when we were at Auchinleven, I
could excuse him for losing his head and kissing me. To-day I didn't
give him the slightest encouragement. He had shown his indifference by
going away without even a word of farewell, and I suppose he kissed me
in cold blood merely to fulfil his threat and his boast that he always
keeps a promise."
"Cold-blooded kisses can hardly be very shocking, I should imagine,"
remarked Lady Fermanagh drily.
"They were not cold-blooded. He kissed me ravenously, passionately,
and almost stifled me. I felt as if he were drinking the heart out of
me," said Myra. "If I was sure he is as frantically in love with me as
he professes to be, I could excuse him, and I might find myself falling
in love with him. It is the thought that he may still only be amusing
himself, gratifying his vanity and trying to make good his boast that
no woman can resist him, that galls me. If I confessed myself in love
with him, and he then told me he had merely been amusing himself and
proving his power, I should die of shame."
"Why take the risk, Myra? You have been playing with fire, and the
dice are loaded against you. That is an Irishism and a mixed metaphor,
I suppose, but you know what I mean. If you lose your heart to Don
Carlos de Ruiz, you lose Antony Standish, and if you subsequently
discover Don Carlos is not in earnest you will be left broken-hearted,
humiliated, and with your matrimonial prospects ruined."
"I have no intention of breaking my heart about Don Carlos, and don't
intend to make a fool of myself, if that is what you mean," said Myra,
with a sudden change of manner. "I said I'd fool Don Carlos to pay him
out for asserting he had only been amusing himself with me, and I'll do
it yet--if I have not already done it. If he is actually in love with
me, I have the laugh on him now, in spite of what has happened."
"Myra, for goodness sake be sensible!" counselled Lady Fermanagh. "If
Don Carlos is actually in love with you and you make mock of him, his
love may turn to hate. And I warn you that the hatred of a Spaniard is
even more dangerous than his love."
"Pooh! I'm not afraid of him, and I don't understand why I have been
upsetting myself so much," exclaimed Myra, impulsively starting to her
feet. "I'll get even with him. I'll go to the Cavendish's dance after
all. Don Carlos is almost sure to be there, and I may get an
opportunity to punish him for his impertinence."
"Myra, I do wish you would drop this folly," said her aunt. "You must
realise you are running grave risks and imperilling your own happiness.
It seems to me, my dear, that as well as trifling with Don Carlos, you
are trifling with your own heart, and you are not playing fair with
Tony."
"I mean to get even with Don Carlos," Myra responded, stubbornly, with
an impatient toss of her red-gold head. "It will be amusing to see the
man who boasted that no woman could resist him chagrined and
broken-hearted because Myra Rostrevor has laughed at him and made his
boasts seem foolish."
"You have had your warning," exclaimed Lady Fermanagh abruptly. "Don't
expect any sympathy from me if you get burnt as a result of playing
with fire."
She swept out of the room, and as the door closed Myra made a moue,
flung herself down in the armchair again, and lit her cigarette.
"Damn him!" she said fervently.