"Young hearts, bright eyes, and rosy lips are there,
And fairy steps, and light and laughing voices,
Ringing like welcome music through the air--
A sound at which the untroubled heart rejoices."
--HON. MRS. NORTON.
PORTIA, dressed in _merveilleux_ of a cream shade, with a soft, yellow
rose in her hair, is looking her loveliest. She is a little languid
after her walk, and a little _distraite_, but desirable beyond words.
She is coquetting with her dinner, rather than eating it, and is
somewhat uncomfortably conscious that Fabian's eyes are perpetually
wandering in her direction.
Dicky Browne is talking gaily, and is devoting himself with an ardor
worthy of a better cause to Julia Beaufort, who is chattering inanely
about many things, and who is in her element, and a blood-colored gown.
They have all the conversation to themselves, these two, as the others
are depressed, or rather impressed, by Sir Christopher's silence, who
has one of his brooding fits upon him. Either the redoubtable Bowles
disagreed with him, or he disagreed with Bowles, because clouds have
crowned his brow since his return home.
Mrs. Beaufort by this time has got to Sardou's last comedy, and Dicky,
who never heard of it or its author, comes to a conversational
stand-still. This means uninterrupted quiet all round, as nobody else is
saying anything. The footsteps of the solemn butler, and his equally
solemn assistant, is all the sound one hears, and presently they all
wake to the fact that something _must_ be said, and _soon_.
"What wretched artichokes!" says Dulce, coming nobly to the front, with
a laudable desire to fill up the yawning gap.
"Yes--melancholy," says Roger, backing her up, as in duty bound; "out of
all heart, apparently."
At this weak attempt at a joke Dicky grins approvingly.
"I know few people so altogether sufficing as our Roger," he says
patronizingly, addressing nobody in particular; and as nobody in
particular appears to think it necessary to answer him, conversation
once more languishes.
Sir Mark--who can always find resources in his dinner, whatever else may
fail him--is placidly happy, so is Mrs. Beaufort, though, perhaps, she
is a little sorry that her sleeves have not been made as tight as
Portia's, and with the second puffing, which is certainly beyond all
praise!
"What's this?" asks Sir Christopher, addressing the butler in a resigned
tone, and looking at a round, soft mass that has just been laid before
him.
"Suet dumpling, Sir Christopher," replies the butler, apologetically.
"Again!" says Sir Christopher, in an indescribable manner.
"Surely not _again_," repeats Dulce, with unpleasant animation. "It
_can't_ be that frightful thing _again_, after all I said to cook
yesterday!"
"I'm afraid it is, 'em," says the butler, very sadly.
"And this is the cook Miss Gaunt so highly recommended!" says Dulce,
wrathfully. "Save me from my friends, say I; can't she make anything
else, Martin?"
"This is a gooseberry tart, 'em," whispers the butler, respectfully, a
faint shade of encouragement in his voice, laying that delicacy before
her.
"That means sugar--lots of sugar," says Dicky Browne, who is sitting
close to her. "I'm glad of that, I like lots of sugar."
Portia laughs.
"You are like my lord mayor's fool," she says; "you like everything that
is sweet."
"I do," says Dicky, fondly; "that's why I like you."
"I think it was very wrong of Miss Gaunt to impose such a woman upon
us," says Dulce, deeply aggrieved.
"Never trust an old maid," says Roger; "I spend my life giving you good
advice, which you won't take; and such an old maid, too, as Miss Gaunt!
She is as good (or as bad) as two rolled into one."
"She said she was a perfect treasure," exclaims Miss Blount, casting an
indignant glance at him.
"Send her back her treasure, then, and tell her, as you are not selfish,
you could not think of depriving _her_ of her services."
"Is that a sample of your good advice?" asks she, with considerable
scorn. "Besides, I can't; I have agreed with this woman to stay here for
a month."
"Fancy suet dumplings every day for a month," says Dicky Browne,
unfeelingly; "that means four weeks--thirty-one days! We shall be dead,
I shouldn't wonder, long before that."
"No such luck," says Sir Mark.
"Give her anything she wants, Dulce, and send her away," says Sir
Christopher.
"But she will think me so unkind and capricious," protests Dulce, who is
an arrant little coward, and is afraid to tell cook she no longer
requires her. The cook is a big Scotchwoman, with very large bones, and
a great many of them.
"Well, do whatever you like," says Uncle Christopher, wearily.
The night is fine, calm, and cool, and sweet with many perfumes. Some of
them at table cast lingering glances at the lawn without, and long,
silently, to be standing on it. The moon has risen, and cast across it
great streaks of silver light that brighten and darken as clouds race
each other o'er Astarte's sacred brow.
There is great silence on the air, broken only by a "murmuring winde,
much like the sowne of swarming bees." A little rivulet in the far
distance runs musically.
"Let us all go out," says Julia Beaufort, suddenly, feeling she has
already spent quite too long a time over her biscuit and claret.
"Ah! thank you," says Portia, quickly, turning to her almost before she
had finished speaking--her great, soft eyes even larger than usual. "I
have been so longing to say that for the last five minutes."
"The 'lost chord' has been struck again," says Dicky Browne. "Mrs.
Beaufort, I won't be deserted in this barefaced fashion. If you are
determined to court death through night dews, _I_ shall court it with
you."
Julia simpers, and looks delighted. Then they all rise from the table,
and move towards the balcony; all--that is--except Sir Mark, who (though
he would have dearly liked to accompany them into the mystic moonlight)
still lingers behind to bear company with Sir Christopher, and strive to
lay the ghost that so plainly is haunting him to-night.
Joyously they all descend the steps, and then break into a little run as
their feet touch the velvet grass. The sky is bright with pale blue
light, the air is soft and warm as sultry noon. A little baby wind--that
ought to be in bed, so sweet and tender it is--is roaming here and there
amongst the flowers, playing with the scented grasses, and losing itself
amongst the bracken, lower down.
One can hear the roar of the distant ocean breaking itself against the
giant rocks; one can hear, too, in strange contrast, the chirp, chirp of
the green grasshopper.
As they come within view of the fountain, all their mouths form
themselves into many round Os, and they say, "Ah!" as with one breath.
The scene is indeed charming beyond description. The water of the
fountain is bright as silver, great patches of purest moonlight lying on
it as calm as though in death. The water-lilies tremble faintly, as it
might be in terror of the little gods who are leaning over them. A
shadow from the trees in the background falls athwart a crouching Venus.
Some pretty, low chairs are standing scattered about, and Portia sinking
into one, the others all follow her example, and seating themselves on
chairs on the soft sward begin to enjoy themselves.
The men produce cigars, and are presently happy in their own way. Roger
or Dicky asks every one, indiscriminately, if she would like a
cigarette; a question responded to in the negative by all, though in
truth Dulce would have dearly liked one.
Fabian, who has come with them, is lying full length upon the grass,
with his hands behind his head, gazing dreamily at the glimpse of the
far-off sea, that shows through the dark-green firs. Dulce's silvery
laugh is waking an echo lower down. There is a great sense of rest and
happiness in the hour.
A big, lazy bumblebee, tumbling sleepily into Portia's lap, wakes her
into life. It lies upon her, looking larger and blacker than its wont,
as it shows against the pallor of her gown. She starts, and draws
herself up with a half-suppressed cry.
Fabian, lifting the bee from her knees, flings it high into the air, and
sends it off on the errand it was probably bound on before it fell in
love with Portia.
"How foolish of me to be frightened of it--pretty thing," she says, with
a faint blush. "How black it looked."
"_Every_thing frightens me," says Julia Beaufort pensively,
"_everything_!"
"Do I?" asks Dicky Browne, in a tone full of abject misery. "Oh! _say_ I
don't."
"I meant insects you know, and frogs, and horrid things like that,"
lisps Julia. "And they always will come flying round one just on a
perfect night like this, when"--sentimentally--"Nature is wrapt in its
profoundest beauty!"
"I don't think I ever saw a frog fly," says Dicky Browne, innocently.
"Is it nice to look at? Is it funny?"
"No! it's only silly--like you!" says Dulce throwing a rosebud at him,
which he catches dexterously.
"Thank you," he says, meekly, whether for the speech or the flower, he
leaves vague.
"Stephen Gower is coming over here to-night," says Roger suddenly.
"To-night? Why didn't you ask him to dinner?" asks Dulce, a note of
surprise in her tone.
"I did ask him, but, for some reason I now forget, he could not come. He
confessed he was lonely, however, in that big barn of a house, and said
he would feel deeply grateful if you would permit him to drop in later
on. I said you would; and advised him to drop in by all means, though
how people do that has always been a puzzle to me."
"Who is Stephen Gower?" asks Portia, curiously, of no one in particular.
She is leaning back in her chair, and is fanning herself languidly.
"He is Roger's _Fidus Achates_--his second self--his very soul!" says
Dicky Browne, enthusiastically. "He is a thing apart. We must, in fact,
be careful of him, lest he break. At least so I have been told."
"I thought you knew him, too," says Dulce. "I always believed you and
Roger, and this wonderful Stephen Gower, were all at college together."
"You wronged Dicky, albeit unwittingly," says Mr. Dare, taking his cigar
from between his lips to give more emphasis to his words. "We at
Cambridge were too frivolous for such superior beings as Dicky. It was
at Oxford he commenced his honorable career; it was there he indulged in
those high hopes of future fame that have been so splendidly realized in
his maturer years."
"Don't kick me when I'm down," says Dicky, pathetically. "I couldn't
help it--and at least I have _had_ my hopes. That must be always
something. It's any amount soothing, do you know, to look back upon your
past, and remember what a jolly ass you once were."
"I can't imagine your ever having had hopes of future fame," says Dulce,
laughing.
"Well I had, do you know, any amount of 'em. In the early dawn, when I
was awake--which, perhaps, wasn't so often as it sounds, except when I
was returning from--er--a friend's house. I used to sit up with them,
you know, whenever they had scarla"--
"Oh yes, _we_ know," interrupts Roger, most unfeelingly.
"Well, in the early dawn," continues Dicky, quite unmoved, "when the
little birds were singing, I used to think I could be happy as General
Sir Richard Browne, at the head of a gallant corps, with a few darkies
in the foreground fleeing before my trusty blade. By breakfast time,
however, all that would be changed, and I would glory in the belief that
one day would see me seated on the wool-sack. By dinnertime I was
clothed in sanctimonious lawn; and long before the small hours, I felt
myself a second Drake, starting to conquer another Armada, only one even
_more_ Invincible."
They all laugh at him. And then he laughs at himself, and seems, indeed,
to enjoy the joke even more than they do.
"I don't care," he says, at length, valiantly; "no, not a single screw.
I haven't _done_ anything, you know."
"Oh yes, you have, a lot in your time," murmurs Roger, supportingly.
"But I must come in for the title and the estate when the old boy, my
cousin, 'shuffles off this mortal coil,' and in the meantime the
governor stands to me decently enough, and I'm pretty jolly all round."
"Tell us about Stephen Gower," says Dulce, after a pause, "He interests
me, I don't know why. What is he like?"
"He is
'A greenery yallery
Grosvenor gallery
Foot-in-the-grave young man.'"
quotes Dicky, gaily.
"An aesthetic! Oh! I _do_ hope not," exclaims Dulce, in a horrified tone.
"Have they pursued me even down here?" asks Portia, faintly. "I thought,
I _hoped_, they were plants indigenous to London soil alone."
"He is nothing of the sort," says Roger, indignantly. "He is about the
best fellow I know. He would be ashamed to go round (like those idiots
you speak of) with flowers and flowing locks. He leaves all that sort of
thing"--contemptuously--"to girls."
"Who is talking of Stephen Gower?" asks Sir Mark, coming towards them
over the path of moonlight that lies upon the smooth lawn. "Happy man to
be discussed by so fair a trio, 'beneath the sweet-smelling starlight,'
as James has it."
"Bless me," says Dicky, "I had no idea dry monopole would have had such
an effect on Gore. He is talking poetry, I think; I never could
understand it myself. Now for example, about those stars--_do_ they
smell? _I_ never noticed it. What's it like, Gore?"
Everyone disdains to take notice of this sally--all, that is, except
Dulce, who is always only too delighted to laugh whenever the barest
chance of being able to do so presents itself.
Roger, crossing over to where she sits, leans his arms on the back of
her chair, and bends his face to hers.
"Look here," he says, in the conciliatory tone of one who is going to
make a request and is not quite sure it will be granted. "If Gower comes
down by-and-by, I wish you would promise me to be good to him. He is a
very old chum of mine, and a very good fellow, and--be civil to him,
will you?"
"What do you suppose I am going to do to him?" asks Miss Blount, opening
her eyes. "Was I bad to him at luncheon? Are you afraid I shall bite
him? I shan't. You may be happy about that."
"Of course--I know; but I want you to be _particularly_ nice to him,"
goes on Roger, though faintly discouraged by her tone. (Now what did he
mean by saying she _wouldn't_ bite him. It sounds as if she would bite
me!) "He is the oldest friend I have; and--er--as we are to be married
some time or other, I want him to like you very much."
"Who are to be married? You and Mr. Gower? It sounded like it," says
Dulce, wilfully.
"I was thinking of you and myself," he says, a little gravely.
"Well, what is it you want me to do?" asks she, moving restlessly in her
seat. She is, in spite of herself, disturbed by his gravity. "Am I to
make love to him, or am I to let him make love to me? Your devotion to
this old friend is quite touching."
"He would be very unlikely indeed to make love to you," replies Roger,
rather stiffly. "He understands perfectly how matters are between you
and me."
"Oh, no doubt," says Miss Blount, disgustedly. "Everyone seems to know
all about this _absurd_ engagement. I can't think how I was ever brought
to consent to it."
"_Absurd!_" says Mr. Dare, in an impossible tone.
"Yes, _painfully_ absurd! Quite too ridiculous," with unpleasant force.
"Oh!" says Mr. Dare.
"Yes," says Dulce, still defiant, though a little ashamed of herself,
"it is quite enough to make people _hate_ people, all this perpetual
gossip."
"You are at least honest," he says, bitterly.
Silence.
Dulce, whose tempers are always short-lived, after a little reflection
grows very repentant.
Turning to him, she lays her little hand on his, as it still rests on
the arm of her chair, and says, softly:
"I have been cross to you. Forgive me. I did not quite mean it. Tell me
again what you want me to do about your friend."
"It was only a little matter," says Roger, in a low tone, "and it was, I
think, the first favor I ever asked of you; and I thought, perhaps--"
He pauses. And raising himself from his lounging position, on her chair,
moves as though he would go away from her, having abandoned all hope of
having his request acceded to.
But as he turns from her, her fingers tighten upon his, and so she
detains him.
"What is it now?" he asks, coldly, trying to keep up his dignity, but as
his glance meets hers, he melts. And, in truth, just now she could have
thawed a much harder heart, for on her _mignon_ face sits one of her
very loveliest smiles, conjured up for Roger's special benefit.
"Don't go away," she entreats, prettily, "and listen to me. I shall be
charming to your friend. I shall devote myself exclusively to him if it
will please you; and if only to prove to you that I _can_ grant you a
favor."
"Thank you," says Roger gratefully. Then he regards her meditatively for
a moment, and then says, slowly:
"Don't be too kind to him."
"Could I?" says Dulce, naively.
He laughs a little, and, bending his head, presses his lips to the
little slender hand that still rests within his own.
The caress is so unusual that Dulce glances at him curiously from under
her long lashes. A faint, pink glow creeps into her cheeks. She is
surprised; perhaps, too, a little pleased, because once again this
evening she bestows upon him a smile, soft and radiant.
Mr. Browne is rambling on in some incoherent fashion to Julia Beaufort.
Sir Mark is telling Portia some quaint little stories. Fabian is
silently listening to them stretched at Portia's feet.
The last glimpse of day has gone. "Death's twin sister, Sleep," has
fallen upon the earth. One by one the sweet stars come out in the dusky
vault above, "spirit-like, infinite."
In amongst the firs that stand close together in a huge clump at the end
of the lawn, great shadows are lying, that stretching ever and ever
further, form at last a link between the land and the sea.
"Ah! here you are, Stephen," says Sir Mark, addressing the languid
young man they had met in the morning, who is coming to them across the
grass. "Why didn't you come sooner?"
"They wouldn't give me any dinner until about an hour ago," says the
languid young man in a subdued voice. He glances from Portia to Julia
Beaufort, and then to Dulce. There his glance rests. It is evident he
has found what he seeks.
"Dulce, I think I told you Stephen Gower was coming to-night," says
Roger, simply. And then Dulce rises and rustles up to him, and filled
with the determination to keep sacred her promise to be particularly
nice to Roger's friend, holds out to him a very friendly hand, and makes
him warmly welcome.
Then Portia makes him a little bow, and Julia simpers at him, and
presently he finds himself accepted by and admitted to the bosom of the
family, which, indeed, is a rather nondescript one. After a few moments
of unavoidable hesitation, he throws himself at Dulce's feet, and,
leaning on his elbow, tells himself country life, after all, isn't half
a bad thing.
"What a heavenly night it is," says Dulce, smiling down on him, still
bent on fulfilling her word to Roger. Perhaps she is hardly aware how
encouraging her smile can be. "See the ocean down there," pointing with
a rounded, soft, bare arm, that gleams like snow in the moonlight, to
where the sea is shining between the trees. "How near it seems, though
we know it is quite far away."
"It is nearer to you than I am," says Mr. Gower, in a tone that might
imply the idea that he thinks the ocean in better care than himself.
"Well, not just now," says Dulce, laughing.
"Not just now," returns he, echoing her laugh. "I suppose we should be
thankful for small mercies; but I wish the Fens was a little nearer to
this place than it is."
"Portia, can you see Inca's Cliff from this?" asks Dulce, looking at her
cousin. "You remember the spot where we saw the little blue flowers
yesterday, that you so coveted. How clearly it stands out now beneath
the moonbeams."
"Like burnished silver," says Portia, dreamily, always with a lazy
motion wafting her black fan to and fro. "And those flowers--how I
longed for them, principally, I suppose, because they were beyond my
reach."
"Where are they," asks Roger. "I never remember seeing blue flowers
there."
"Oh! _you_ wouldn't notice them," says his _fiancee_, a fine touch of
petulance in her tone, that makes Gower lift his head to look at her;
"but they were there nevertheless. They were the very color of the
Alpine gentian, and so pretty. We quite fell in love with them, Portia
and I, Portia especially; but we could not get at them, they were so low
down."
"There was a tiny ledge we might have stood on," says Portia, "but our
courage failed us, and we would not try it."
"And quite right, too," says Sir Mark. "I detest people who climb
precipices and descend cliffs. It makes my blood run cold."
"Then what made you climb all those Swiss mountains, two years ago?"
asks Julia Beaufort, who has a talent for saying the wrong thing, and
who has quite forgotten the love affair that drove Sir Mark abroad at
that time.
"I don't know," replies he, calmly; "I never shall, I suppose. I
perfectly hated it all the while, especially the guides, who were more
like assassins than anything else. I think they hated me, too, and would
have given anything to pitch me over some of the passes."
Portia laughs.
"I can sympathize with you," she says. "Danger of any sort has no charm
for me. Yet I wanted those flowers. I think"--idly--"I shall always want
them, simply because I can't get them."
"You shall have them in three seconds if you will only say the word,"
says Dicky Browne, who is all but fast asleep, and who looks quite as
like descending a rugged cliff as Portia herself.
"I am so glad I don't know the 'word,'" says Portia, with a little
grimace. "It would be a pity to endanger a valuable life like yours."
Dulce turns to Mr. Gower.
"You may smoke if you like," she says, sweetly. "I know you are longing
for a cigarette or something, and _we_ don't mind."
"Really though?" says Gower.
"Yes, really. Even our pretty town-lady here," indicating Portia, "likes
the perfume in the open air."
"Very much indeed," says Portia, graciously, leaning a little toward
Gower, and smiling sweetly.
"A moment ago I told myself I could not be happier," says Stephen,
glancing at Dulce. "And indeed I wanted nothing further--but if I may
smoke--if I have your permission to light this," producing a cigar, "I
shall feel that my end is near; I shall know that the gods love me, and
that therefore I _must_ die young."
As he places the cigar between his lips he leans back again at Dulce's
feet with a sigh suggestive of unutterable bliss.
"We were talking about you just before you came," says Dulce, with a
little friendly nod, bending over his recumbent form, and making him a
present of a very adorable smile. "We had all, you know, formed such
different opinions about you."
"What was your opinion," asks he, rising to a sitting posture with an
alacrity not to be expected from a youth of his indolence. In this last
attitude, however, it is easier to see Dulce's charming face. "I
_should_ like to know that."
His manner implies that he would not like to hear the opinion of the
others.
"It was nothing very flattering, I am afraid," said Dulce, with a little
laugh. "I was--to confess the truth--just in the very faintest degree
nervous about you."
"About _me_!"
"Yes," she laughed softly again; "I thought you might be a
'blue-and-white young man,' and that idea filled me with dismay. I don't
think I like a 'soul-ful eyed young man,' _too_ much."
"I'm so glad I'm of the 'threepenny 'bus' lot," says Gower, with a
smile. "Ye gods! what a shocking thought is the other. Look at my hair,
I entreat you, Miss Blount, and tell me does it resemble the lanky locks
of Oscar?"
"No, it is anything but wylde," says Dulce, glancing at his shaven
crown, that any hermit might be proud of: "and do you know I am glad of
your sanity; I should quite hate you if you were a disciple of that
school."
"Poor school," says Gower, pityingly, "for the first time I feel deep
sympathy for it. But with regard to myself, I am flattered you troubled
yourself to think of me at all. Did it really matter to you what my
convictions might be?"
"Yes, of course," says Dulce, opening her eyes, and showing herself
half in fun, half in earnest, and wholly desirable. "Such a near
neighbor as you must be. I suppose we shall see a good deal of you--at
least"--sweetly--"I hope we shall; and how would it be with us if you
called here every morning with lanky tresses, and a cadaverous face, and
words culled from a language obsolete?"
This little speech quite dazzles Gower. Not the sauciness of it, but the
undercurrent of kindliness. "_Every_ morning!" Does she really mean that
he may come up to this enchanting spot every morning?
It had, of course, occurred to him, during prayers, in the early part of
the day, when he had sat out the dreary service with exemplary patience,
and his eyes fixed on the Blount pew, that, perhaps, he might be allowed
to call once a week at the Hall, without being considered by the inmates
an absolute nuisance--but every day! this sounds too good to be true,
and is, therefore, received by him with caution.
"You needn't be afraid of me," he says, apropos of Dulce's last remark.
"I can speak no language but my own, and that badly."
"What a comfort," says Miss Blount. She is now wondering if she has done
her duty by her new guest, and if she has been everything to him that
she ought to have been, considering her promise to Roger.
"Where is Fabian?" she asks, suddenly, peering through the dusky gloom.
"Are you there, darling?"
But no one answers her. It seems to them, that, tiring of their company,
he has betaken himself to solitude and the house, once more. No one has
seen him go, but, during the last few minutes, a gray black cloud has
been slowly wandering over the pale-faced moon, and forms and features
have been more indistinct. Perhaps Portia, who is sitting on the outer
edge of the group, might have noticed his departure, but, if so, she
says nothing of it.
Time runs on. Some one yawns, and then tries vainly to turn it into a
sigh. The bell from some distant steeple in the little slumbering
village far below in the plain, tolls slowly, solemnly, as though to
warn them that eleven more hours have slipped into the great and
fathomless sea of Eternity.
"Ah! so late!" says Dulce, with a little start. "How swiftly time has
gone to-night. I never knew it fly with such hot haste. That proves I
have been happy, does it not?"
She smiles down upon Mr. Gower, who is still at her feet, and he smiles
up only too willingly at her.
At this moment a dark figure emerges from amongst the moaning firs, and
comes toward them. In the uncertain and somewhat ghostly light it
appears of an unusually large size. Dulce draws her breath a little
quickly, and Julia, feeling her duty lies in this direction, gives way
to a dainty scream. Portia, whose eyes have been upon this new comer for
a full minute before the others noticed him, only turns her head away,
and lets it sink a degree more lazily into the cushion of her chair.
The firs mounting high into the sky, stand out boldly against their
azure background. Fabian, in answer to Julia's touch of affectation,
advances with more haste, and says:
"It is only me," in his usual clear, slow voice.
Passing by Portia's chair, he drops into her lap a little bunch of dark
blue flowers.
"Ah!" she says quickly, then checks herself. Taking up the deeply-dyed
blossoms, she lays them in her pink palm, and, bending her face over
them, examines them silently. Sir Mark, regarding her curiously from the
background, wonders whether she is thinking of them or of their donor.
"Why, those are the flowers we were talking about," says Dulce, with a
faint contraction of her brows. "Fabian! Did you risk your life to get
them?"
"Your life!" says Portia, in an indescribable tone, and as if the words
are drawn from her against her will. I think she had made up her mind to
keep utter silence, but some horror connected with Dulce's hasty remark
has unbound her lips. She turns her eyes upon him, and he can see by the
moonlight that her face is very white.
"My dear fellow," says Sir Mark, "you grow more eccentric daily. Now
this last act was rashness itself. That cliff is very nearly impassable,
and in this uncertain light--"
"It was the simplest thing in the world," says Fabian, coldly. "There
was the ledge Dulce told you of, and plenty of tough heather to hold on
by. I assure you, if there was the smallest danger, I should not have
attempted it. And, besides, I was fully rewarded for any trouble I
undertook. The view up there to-night is magnificent."
To Portia it is an easy matter to translate this last remark. He is
giving her plainly to understand that he neither seeks nor desires
thanks from _her_. The view has sufficed him. It was to let his eyes
feast upon the glorious riches nature had spread before him that led him
up the mountain-side, not a foolish longing to gratify her whim at any
cost to himself.
She looks at the flowers again, and with one tapered finger turns them
over and over in her hand.
"Well, good people," says Sir Mark, rising to his feet, "as it is eleven
o'clock, and as the dew is falling, and as you are all plainly bent on
committing suicide by means of rheumatism, neuralgia and catarrhs
generally, I shall leave you and seek my virtuous couch."
"What's a catarrh?" asks Dicky Browne, confidentially, of no one in
particular.
"A cold in your nose," replies Roger, uncompromisingly.
"I thought it was something to play on," says Mr. Browne unabashed.
"Dear me! Is it really eleven?" asks Julia. "I should never have thought
it,"--in reality she thought it was twelve--"why did you not tell
me?"--this to the attentive Dicky, who is placing a shawl round her
shoulders--"you must have known."
"'With thee conversing I forget all time,'" quotes that ardent
personage, with a beautiful smile. "I thought it was only nine."
Even with this flagrant lie Julia is well pleased.
"Dulce, tuck up your gown, the grass is really wet," says Roger,
carelessly, "and put this round you." He goes up to her, as he speaks,
with a soft white scarf in his hands.
"Thank you; Mr. Gower will put it on for me," says Dulce, rather more
wilfully than coquettishly handing the wrap to Stephen, who takes it as
if it were some sacred symbol, and, with nervous care, smothers her
slender figure in it. Roger, with a faint shrug, turns away, and devotes
his attentions to Sir Mark.
Portia, still with the flowers in her hand, has wandered away from the
others, and entering the drawing-room before they have mounted the
balcony steps, goes up to a mirror and regards herself attentively for a
moment.
A little gold brooch, of Indian workmanship, is fastening the lace at
her bosom. She loosens it, and then raises the flowers (now growing
rather crushed and drooping) as if with the evident intention of placing
them, by means of the brooch, against her neck.
Yet, even with her hand half lifted she hesitates, glances at her own
image again; and finally, turning away, leaves the brooch empty.
Fabian, entering the drawing-room at this moment with the others, has
had time to notice the action, the hesitation, everything.
Then comes bed hour. The men prepare to go to the smoking-room--the
women think fondly of their own rooms and their maids.
Fabian, lighting a candle, takes it up to Portia. They are all standing
in the hall now, beneath the light of the hanging lamps. She smiles her
thanks without letting her eyes meet his, and lets him place the candle
in her left hand.
"Have you hurt this?" he asks, lightly touching her right hand as he
speaks.
"No." She pauses a moment, and then, slowly opening her closed fingers,
shows him the blue flowers lying therein.
"They are lovely," she says, in a low tone, "and I _did_ wish for them.
But never--_never_--do that again."
"Do what again?"
"Endanger your life for me."
"There was no danger--and you had expressed a wish for them."