And where was the subject of their condemnatory opinions all this
while? Having secured a room at his inn, he came forth to complete the
discovery of his dear mistress’s halting-place without delay. After
one or two inquiries he ascertained where such a party of English were
staying; and arriving at the hotel, knew at once that he had tracked
them to earth by seeing the heavier portion of the Power luggage
confronting him in the hall. He sent up intelligence of his presence,
and awaited her reply with a beating heart.
In the meanwhile Dare, descending from his pernicious interview with
Paula and the rest, had descried Captain De Stancy in the public
drawing-room, and entered to him forthwith. It was while they were here
together that Somerset passed the door and sent up his name to Paula.
The incident at the railway station was now reversed, Somerset being
the observed of Dare, as Dare had then been the observed of Somerset.
Immediately on sight of him Dare showed real alarm. He had imagined that
Somerset would eventually impinge on Paula’s route, but he had scarcely
expected it yet; and the architect’s sudden appearance led Dare to
ask himself the ominous question whether Somerset had discovered his
telegraphic trick, and was in the mood for prompt measures.
‘There is no more for me to do here,’ said the boy hastily to De Stancy.
‘Miss Power does not wish to ask me any more questions. I may as well
proceed on my way, as you advised.’
De Stancy, who had also gazed with dismay at Somerset’s passing figure,
though with dismay of another sort, was recalled from his vexation by
Dare’s remarks, and turning upon him he said sharply, ‘Well may you be
in such a hurry all of a sudden!’
‘True, I am superfluous now.’
‘You have been doing a foolish thing, and you must suffer its
inconveniences.--Will, I am sorry for one thing; I am sorry I ever
owned you; for you are not a lad to my heart. You have disappointed
me--disappointed me almost beyond endurance.’
‘I have acted according to my illumination. What can you expect of a man
born to dishonour?’
‘That’s mere speciousness. Before you knew anything of me, and while
you thought you were the child of poverty on both sides, you were well
enough; but ever since you thought you were more than that, you have led
a life which is intolerable. What has become of your plan of alliance
between the De Stancys and the Powers now? The man is gone upstairs who
can overthrow it all.’
‘If the man had not gone upstairs, you wouldn’t have complained of my
nature or my plans,’ said Dare drily. ‘If I mistake not, he will come
down again with the flea in his ear. However, I have done; my play is
played out. All the rest remains with you. But, captain, grant me this!
If when I am gone this difficulty should vanish, and things should go
well with you, and your suit should prosper, will you think of him, bad
as he is, who first put you on the track of such happiness, and let him
know it was not done in vain?’
‘I will,’ said De Stancy. ‘Promise me that you will be a better boy?’
‘Very well--as soon as ever I can afford it. Now I am up and away, when
I have explained to them that I shall not require my room.’
Dare fetched his bag, touched his hat with his umbrella to the captain
and went out of the hotel archway. De Stancy sat down in the stuffy
drawing-room, and wondered what other ironies time had in store for him.
A waiter in the interim had announced Somerset to the group upstairs.
Paula started as much as Charlotte at hearing the name, and Abner Power
stared at them both.
‘If Mr. Somerset wishes to see me ON BUSINESS, show him in,’ said Paula.
In a few seconds the door was thrown open for Somerset. On receipt of
the pointed message he guessed that a change had come. Time, absence,
ambition, her uncle’s influence, and a new wooer, seemed to account
sufficiently well for that change, and he accepted his fate. But a
stoical instinct to show her that he could regard vicissitudes with the
equanimity that became a man; a desire to ease her mind of any fear
she might entertain that his connection with her past would render him
troublesome in future, induced him to accept her permission, and see the
act to the end.
‘How do you do, Mr. Somerset?’ said Abner Power, with sardonic
geniality: he had been far enough about the world not to be greatly
concerned at Somerset’s apparent failing, particularly when it helped to
reduce him from the rank of lover to his niece to that of professional
adviser.
Miss De Stancy faltered a welcome as weak as that of the Maid of
Neidpath, and Paula said coldly, ‘We are rather surprised to see you.
Perhaps there is something urgent at the castle which makes it necessary
for you to call?’
‘There is something a little urgent,’ said Somerset slowly, as he
approached her; ‘and you have judged rightly that it is the cause of
my call.’ He sat down near her chair as he spoke, put down his hat, and
drew a note-book from his pocket with a despairing sang froid that was
far more perfect than had been Paula’s demeanour just before.
‘Perhaps you would like to talk over the business with Mr. Somerset
alone?’ murmured Charlotte to Miss Power, hardly knowing what she said.
‘O no,’ said Paula, ‘I think not. Is it necessary?’ she said, turning to
him.
‘Not in the least,’ replied he, bestowing a penetrating glance upon
his questioner’s face, which seemed however to produce no effect; and
turning towards Charlotte, he added, ‘You will have the goodness, I am
sure, Miss De Stancy, to excuse the jargon of professional details.’
He spread some tracings on the table, and pointed out certain modified
features to Paula, commenting as he went on, and exchanging occasionally
a few words on the subject with Mr. Abner Power by the distant window.
In this architectural dialogue over his sketches, Somerset’s head and
Paula’s became unavoidably very close. The temptation was too much for
the young man. Under cover of the rustle of the tracings, he murmured,
‘Paula, I could not get here before!’ in a low voice inaudible to the
other two.
She did not reply, only busying herself the more with the notes and
sketches; and he said again, ‘I stayed a couple of days at Genoa, and
some days at San Remo, and Mentone.’
‘But it is not the least concern of mine where you stayed, is it?’ she
said, with a cold yet disquieted look.
‘Do you speak seriously?’ Somerset brokenly whispered.
Paula concluded her examination of the drawings and turned from him with
sorrowful disregard. He tried no further, but, when she had signified
her pleasure on the points submitted, packed up his papers, and rose
with the bearing of a man altogether superior to such a class of
misfortune as this. Before going he turned to speak a few words of a
general kind to Mr. Power and Charlotte.
‘You will stay and dine with us?’ said the former, rather with the air
of being unhappily able to do no less than ask the question. ‘My charges
here won’t go down to the table-d’hote, I fear, but De Stancy and myself
will be there.’
Somerset excused himself, and in a few minutes withdrew. At the door
he looked round for an instant, and his eyes met Paula’s. There was the
same miles-off expression in hers that they had worn when he entered;
but there was also a look of distressful inquiry, as if she were
earnestly expecting him to say something more. This of course Somerset
did not comprehend. Possibly she was clinging to a hope of some excuse
for the message he was supposed to have sent, or for the other and more
degrading matter. Anyhow, Somerset only bowed and went away.
A moment after he had gone, Paula, impelled by something or other,
crossed the room to the window. In a short time she saw his form in the
broad street below, which he traversed obliquely to an opposite corner,
his head somewhat bent, and his eyes on the ground. Before vanishing
into the Ritterstrasse he turned his head and glanced at the hotel
windows, as if he knew that she was watching him. Then he disappeared;
and the only real sign of emotion betrayed by Paula during the whole
episode escaped her at this moment. It was a slight trembling of the lip
and a sigh so slowly breathed that scarce anybody could hear--scarcely
even Charlotte, who was reclining on a couch her face on her hand and
her eyes downcast.
Not more than two minutes had elapsed when Mrs. Goodman came in with a
manner of haste.
‘You have returned,’ said Mr. Power. ‘Have you made your purchases?’
Without answering, she asked, ‘Whom, of all people on earth, do you
think I have met? Mr. Somerset! Has he been here?--he passed me almost
without speaking!’
‘Yes, he has been here,’ said Paula. ‘He is on the way from Genoa home,
and called on business.’
‘You will have him here to dinner, of course?’
‘I asked him,’ said Mr. Power, ‘but he declined.’
‘O, that’s unfortunate! Surely we could get him to come. You would like
to have him here, would you not, Paula?’
‘No, indeed. I don’t want him here,’ said she.
‘You don’t?’
‘No!’ she said sharply.
‘You used to like him well enough, anyhow,’ bluntly rejoined Mrs.
Goodman.
Paula sedately: ‘It is a mistake to suppose that I ever particularly
liked the gentleman mentioned.’
‘Then you are wrong, Mrs. Goodman, it seems,’ said Mr. Power.
Mrs. Goodman, who had been growing quietly indignant, notwithstanding
a vigorous use of her fan, at this said. ‘Fie, fie, Paula! you did like
him. You said to me only a week or two ago that you should not at all
object to marry him.’
‘It is a mistake,’ repeated Paula calmly. ‘I meant the other one of the
two we were talking about.’
‘What, Captain De Stancy?’
‘Yes.’
Knowing this to be a fiction, Mrs. Goodman made no remark, and hearing
a slight noise behind, turned her head. Seeing her aunt’s action,
Paula also looked round. The door had been left ajar, and De Stancy was
standing in the room. The last words of Mrs. Goodman, and Paula’s reply,
must have been quite audible to him.
They looked at each other much as if they had unexpectedly met at
the altar; but after a momentary start Paula did not flinch from
the position into which hurt pride had betrayed her. De Stancy bowed
gracefully, and she merely walked to the furthest window, whither he
followed her.
‘I am eternally grateful to you for avowing that I have won favour in
your sight at last,’ he whispered.
She acknowledged the remark with a somewhat reserved bearing. ‘Really
I don’t deserve your gratitude,’ she said. ‘I did not know you were
there.’
‘I know you did not--that’s why the avowal is so sweet to me. Can I take
you at your word?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Then your preference is the greatest honour that has ever fallen to my
lot. It is enough: you accept me?’
‘As a lover on probation--no more.’
The conversation being carried on in low tones, Paula’s uncle and aunt
took it as a hint that their presence could be spared, and severally
left the room--the former gladly, the latter with some vexation.
Charlotte De Stancy followed.
‘And to what am I indebted for this happy change?’ inquired De Stancy,
as soon as they were alone.
‘You shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth,’ she replied brusquely,
and with tears in her eyes for one gone.
‘You mistake my motive. I am like a reprieved criminal, and can scarcely
believe the news.’
‘You shouldn’t say that to me, or I shall begin to think I have been too
kind,’ she answered, some of the archness of her manner returning. ‘Now,
I know what you mean to say in answer; but I don’t want to hear more at
present; and whatever you do, don’t fall into the mistake of supposing
I have accepted you in any other sense than the way I say. If you don’t
like such a limitation you can go away. I dare say I shall get over it.’
‘Go away! Could I go away?--But you are beginning to tease, and will
soon punish me severely; so I will make my escape while all is well. It
would be presumptuous to expect more in one day.’
‘It would indeed,’ said Paula, with her eyes on a bunch of flowers.