Lady Luce came forward to him with both hands extended; and the "Drake,
thank God!" was perhaps as genuinely a devout an expression as she had
ever uttered. For it seemed to her that Providence had especially
intervened in her behalf and sent him to her side. We all of us have an
idea that Providence is more interested in us than in other persons.
Drake stood and looked at her for an instant with the same surprise
which had assailed him when he recognized her; then he took the small,
exquisitely gloved hands. How could he refuse them? As he had said, the
members of their set could not be strangers, though two of them had been
lovers and one had been jilted. They had to meet as friends or
acquaintances, as individuals of a community, which, living for
pleasure, could not be bored by quarrels and estrangements.
In the "smart" set a man lives not for himself alone, but for the other
men with whom he plays and shoots and jokes and drinks; for the women
with whom he drives and rides and dances. He must sink personal feeling,
likes and dislikes, or the social ship which he joins as one of the
crew, the ship which can sail only on smooth and sunlit waves, will
founder. So Drake took her hands and smiled a greeting at her.
"Why! To find you here! What are you doing here, Drake?" she said.
She had no right to call him "Drake"; she had lost that right the day
she had jilted him; but she called him "Drake," and the name left her
lips softly and meltingly.
"I might ask the same of you, Luce," he replied gravely, and unconscious
in the stress of the moment that he, too, had used the Christian name.
But, alas! Nell had heard it! She had, half mechanically, shrunk behind
the pedestal; she shrank still farther behind it as Drake spoke, and she
put up her hand on the cold marble as if for support. For she was
trembling in every limb, and a sensation as of approaching death was
creeping over her. The terrace and the two figures grew misty and
indistinct, the music of the band sounded like a blurred discord in her
ears, and the blood rushed through her veins like fire one moment and
like ice the next.
She would have rushed out of her hiding place and into the house, but
she could not move. Was she going to die? or was this awful, sickening
weakness only a warning that she was going to faint? She pressed her
forehead against the marble, and the icy coldness of the unsympathetic
stone revived her. She found that she could hear every word, though the
two had moved to the stone rail.
"It is quite a shock!" said Lady Luce. She put her handkerchief to her
lips, her eyes, and then looked up at him with the smile, the confession
of weakness, which is one of woman's most irresistible weapons.
"I--I am staying at the Chesneys'--you know the Chesneys? No? There is a
small party--some of us came over to-night to this dance--they are old
friends of the Maltbys. Drake, I can scarcely believe it is you!"
He stood beside her patiently, and yet impatiently. He was thinking of
Nell even at that moment; wondering where she was, how soon he could get
away from Lady Luce and find Nell.
"You are staying here?" she asked, meaning at the Maltbys'.
He nodded, thinking it well to leave her misconception uncorrected.
"How strange! Drake, it--it is like Fate!" she murmured; and, indeed,
she felt that it was.
"Like Fate?" he asked.
"Yes--that--that we should meet here, in this out-of-the way place, so
soon. Oh, Drake, if you knew how glad I am!"
She put out her hand and touched his arm with the timid touch, the
suggestion of a caress, which women can convey so significantly.
Drake glanced toward the open window apprehensively. Nell--any
one--might come out any moment, and----
"Shall we walk to the end of the terrace?" he said. "You will catch
cold----"
As he spoke he looked down at her. There was only a man's inquiry, and
consideration for a woman's bare shoulders, in the look; but to Nell,
whose eyes were fixed upon him with an agonized intentness, it seemed
that the look was eloquent of tenderness and passion.
"Yes, yes," assented Lady Luce quickly. "Some one may come, and--and--we
have so much to say, haven't we, Drake?"
He drew her arm within his mechanically, as he would have drawn it if he
had been leading her to a dance, or in to dinner, and they moved beyond
Nell's hearing.
Drake bit his lip, and glanced sideways toward the house. What could she
have to say to him? and what did this sudden tenderness, this humility,
of hers mean?
Suddenly it occurred to him that she had seen his uncle, and heard of
the old man's offer. Ten thousand a year was not a large income for one
in Lady Lucille Turfleigh's position; but--well, she might have been
tempted by it. His face hardened with an expression of cold cynicism
which Nell had never seen.
"What have we to say, Luce?" he asked. "I thought you and I had
exhausted all topics of absorbing interest when we parted the other
day."
She winced, and looked up at him reproachfully.
"Oh, how cruel of you, Drake!" she murmured, "As if I hadn't suffered
enough!"
"Suffered!"
He smiled down at her, with something as nearly approaching a sneer as
Drake Selbie could bring himself to bestow upon a woman.
"Yes. Drake, did you think I was quite heartless? that--I--I--did what I
did without suffering? Ah, no, you couldn't think that; you know me too
well."
Her audacity brought a smile to his lips, and he found it difficult to
restrain a laugh of amusement. It was because he had learned to know her
so well that he himself had not suffered a pang at their broken
engagement--at least, no pang since he had learned to know and love
Nell.
Where was she? How could he get away from this woman, whose face was
upturned to him with passionate pleading on it?
"Have you seen my uncle lately?" he asked grimly, but with a kind of
suddenness.
"No," she replied, and the lie came "like truth"--so like truth that
Drake felt ashamed of his suspicion of her motive.
She had not, then, heard of his uncle's offer? Then--then why was she
moved at sight of him? Why were her eyes moist with unshed tears, the
pressure of her hand on his arm tremulous and beseeching?
"No," she said; "I--I have been scarcely anywhere. I have--not been
well. I came down here to the Chesneys' to bury myself--just to bury
myself. I have been so wretched, so miserable, Drake."
"I'm sorry," he said gravely. "But why?"
She looked up at him reproachfully.
"Don't you--know? Ah, Drake, can't you guess? Don't--don't look at me
like that and smile. It is not like you to be so--so hard."
"We men are hard or soft as you women make us, Luce," he said quietly.
"Remember that I have been through the mill. I was not hard or
cruel--once."
It was an unwise thing to say. Never, if you have done with a woman, or
she has done with you, talk sentiment, says Rousseau. It was unwise, for
it let Luce in.
"I know! Yes, it was all my fault. Drake, do you think I don't know
that? Do you think that I don't tell myself so every hour of the day,
every hour at night, when I lay awake thinking of--of the past?"
"The past is buried, Luce," he said, with a short laugh. "Don't let us
dig it up again. After all, you acted wisely----"
"No; I acted like a fool!" she broke in; and she meant it. "If I had
only listened to the cry of my own heart--if I had only refused to obey
father, and--and stuck to you! But, Drake, though you think me
heartless, and--and sneer----"
"I didn't mean to sneer, Luce," he said. "Forgive me if I did so
unintentionally. I quite understood your difficulty, and, as I told you
the day we parted, I--well, I made allowances for you. You did what most
women of our set would have done."
"Would they? But perhaps they really are heartless, while I----Drake,
you can't tell what I have suffered; how--how terribly I have missed
you! I--yes, I will tell you the truth. Do you know, Drake, that I had
made a vow that whenever we met, whether it was soon, or not for years,
I would tell you all. Yes--though, like a man, you should despise me for
it!"
"I'm not likely to despise you for it, Luce," he said. As he spoke, Lady
Chesney came out onto the terrace. She looked up and down, saw the two
figures standing together, and, with a smile, returned to the house.
"No; you are too generous for that, Drake; even if I--I confess that I
have not spent one happy--oh, the word is a mockery!--that I have been
wretched since the hour I--I left you."
His face grew grave, almost stern.
"I'm sorry," he said simply. "Candidly, I didn't think----"
"No, I know! You thought that I only cared for you because----You told
me that I was heartless and mercenary, you remember, Drake. But, ah; it
wasn't true! Yes, I've been brought up at a bad school. I've been taught
that it's a sacred duty for every girl, as poor as I am, to make a good
match; and I thought--see how frank I am!--that I could part from you,
oh, not easily, but without breaking my heart. But I--I was mistaken! I
miss you so dreadfully! There is not another man in the world I can care
for, or even dream of caring for."
"Hush!" he said sternly.
There was always something impressive about Drake, a touch of the
manliness which is somewhat rare nowadays, the manliness which women are
so quick to acknowledge and bow to; and Lady Luce shrank a little; but
her hand tightened on his arm, and her brown, velvety eyes dimmed with
genuine tears--for she was more than anxious, and more than half in love
with him--looked up at him penitently, imploringly.
"Drake--you believe me?" she whispered. "Don't--don't punish me too
badly! See, I am at your feet--a woman--Drake"--her voice sank to a
whisper, became almost inaudible, and her head drooped forward until it
nearly rested on his breast. "Drake--forgive--me and----"
Her voice broke suddenly.
He was moved to something like pity. Is there any man alive who can
resist the prayer, the touch of a beautiful woman, especially if she is
the woman he has once loved? If such a man there be, his name is not
Drake Selbie.
"Hush!" he said again, but in a gentler voice. "God knows, I loved you,
Luce----"
She uttered a faint cry. It was no louder than the sough of the night
breeze.
"Drake--Drake! ah, Drake!" she breathed, her face lifted to his, her
other hand touching his breast. "Say it again! It's the sweetest music
I've heard since--since----Say it again, Drake. I won't ask for any
more----"
"Don't!" he said hoarsely. The caress of her hand made him miserable; it
had no power to thrill him now. "I want to tell you, Luce----"
"No--no," she said quickly, eagerly. "Don't scold me to-night. I am so
happy now. It is as if I had come back to life. Say it once more, Drake.
Just 'I forgive you'!"
"I forgive you; but, listen, Luce," he added quickly.
She slid her white arm round his neck, and drew his head down and kissed
him. The next moment, before he could say a word, she drew away from him
quickly.
"Go in--I will come presently," she said. "There is some one--there is a
door."
Confused, almost hating her for the kiss she had stolen--with Nell
flashing on his mind--he turned and entered the house by the door to
which she had pointed.
She stood for a moment, then she went toward Lady Chesney. Her face was
pale, but there was a smile on her lips, a glow of triumph in her brown
eyes, as she paused in the light from the open window.
Lady Chesney looked at her, then laughed.
"My dear, you look transformed. Was that--but of course it was! Well?
But one need not ask any questions. Your face tells its own tale."
Luce laughed, and touched her lips with her handkerchief.
"Yes, it was Drake," she said. "What luck! what luck! And they say there
is no Providence!"
"And--and it is all right?" asked Lady Chesney, anxiously.
Lady Luce laughed softly.
"Oh, yes! Didn't I tell you that if I could have him to myself for ten
minutes----And we have been longer, haven't we? You see, he was fond of
me, and----Oh! have you brought a cigarette? I am simply dying for one
now!"
Lady Chesney held one out to her.
"Here it is. But hadn't you better go in? They will miss you----"
Lady Luce shrugged her shoulders as she struck a match from the gold box
Drake had given her.
"What does it matter what these people think?" she retorted. "Nothing
matters now. I have got Drake back, and----All the same, we will get out
of sight of the window, lest we shock these simple folk. Yes, I am a
lucky young woman."
They passed along the terrace, and Nell, as if released from a spell,
fell into the seat and covered her face with her hands.