There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fire-flames
noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle....
* * * * *
Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, the world’s honours, in derision,
Trampled out the light for ever.
BROWNING: _Christina_.
There were two people sitting there, to all appearance completely
absorbed in one another. In the distance, Judith’s head bending slightly
forward, her profile, the curves of her neck and bosom, and the white
mass of her gown, were to be seen clearly outlined against the red. And
another figure, in close proximity to the first, defined itself against
the same background. Reuben started--Judith and Lee-Harrison!
His apathy, his fatigue, his uncertainty as to seeking Judith vanished
as by magic. Outwardly he looked impassive as ever as he strolled into
the all but deserted ball-room. It would have taken a close observer to
perceive, the repressed intensity of his every movement.
There was a draped alcove dividing the front and back drawing-rooms
where Caroline Cardozo and Adelaide were standing as Reuben sauntered
towards them.
“I hardly expected to see you,” cried his sister as Reuben stopped and
greeted the ladies. Adelaide was not enjoying herself. Her social
successes, such as they were, were not usually obtained in the open
competition of the ball-room.
“Am I too late for a dance?” asked Reuben, turning with deference to
Miss Cardozo.
She handed him her card with a faint smile; there were two or three
vacant places on it.
A great fortune (I am quoting Esther), though it always brings proposals
of marriage, does not so invariably bring invitations to dance. Caroline
Cardozo was a plain, thin, wistful girl, with a shy manner that some
people mistook for stand-offishness, who was declared by the men of the
Leunigers’ set to be without an atom of “go.”
Her wealth and importance notwithstanding, she was, as Rose in her
capacity of hostess explained, difficult to get rid of.
Reuben, his dance duly registered, stood talking urbanely, while
scrutinizing from beneath his lids the pair on the balcony.
A nearer view showed him the unmistakable devotion on Bertie’s little
fair face, which was lifted close to Judith’s; he appeared to be
devouring her with his eyes.
And Judith?
It seemed to Reuben that never before had he seen that light in her
eyes, never that flush on her soft cheek, never that strange,
indescribable, almost passionate air in her pose, in her whole presence.
His own heart was beating with a wild, incredulous anger, an astonished
contempt. _He_ to be careful of Judith; _he_ to beware of engaging her
feelings too deeply, _he_, who after all these years had never been able
to bring that look into her eyes!
Bertie? it was impossible!
In any case (with sudden vindictiveness) it was unlikely that Bertie
himself meant anything; and yet--yet--he was just the sort of man to do
an idiotic thing of the kind.
The music struck up, and the dancers drifted back to the ball-room.
Reuben, bowing himself away, turned to see Judith and her escort
standing behind him, while the latter, gathering courage, wrote his name
again and again on her card.
Reuben remained a moment in doubt, then went straight up to her.
“Good-evening, Miss Quixano.”
There was a note of irony in his voice, a look of irony on his pale,
tense face; the glance that he shot at her from his brilliant eyes was
almost cruel.
“Ah, good-evening, Reuben.”
She gave a little gasp, thrilled, bewildered. Long ago, her searching
glance travelling across the two crowded rooms had distinguished the top
of Reuben’s head in the hall beyond. She knew just the way the hair
grew, just the way it was lifted from the forehead in a sidelong crest,
just the way it was beginning to get a little thin at the temples.
Bertie moved off in search of his partner, with a bow and a reminder of
future engagements.
“May I have the pleasure of a dance?”
Reuben retained his tone of ironical formality, but looking into her
uplifted face his jealousy faded and was forgotten.
She held up her card with a smile; it was quite full.
Reuben took it gently from her hand, glanced at it, and tore it into
fragments.
Judith said not a word.
To both of them the little act seemed fraught with strange significance,
the beginning of a new phase in their mutual relations.
Reuben gave her his arm in silence; she took it, half frightened, and he
led her to the furthermost corner of the crimson recess.
The dancers, overflowing from the ball-room beyond, closed about it, and
they were screened from sight.
Reuben leaned forward, looking at her with eyes that seemed literally
alight with some inward flame. The precautions, the restraints, the
reserves which had hitherto fenced in their intercourse, were for the
moment overthrown. Each was swept away on a current of feeling which was
bearing them who knew whither?
To Judith, Reuben was no longer a commodity of the market with a high
price set on him; he was a piteous human creature who entreated her with
his eyes, yet held her chained: her suppliant and her master.
A soft wind blew in suddenly through the red curtains and stirred the
hair on Judith’s forehead.
“Aren’t you cold?”
Reuben broke the silence for the first time.
“No, not at all.” She smiled, then holding back the red drapery with her
hand, looked out into the night.
The November air was damp, warm, and filled full of a yellow haze which
any but a Londoner would have called a fog.
Across the yard and a half of garden which divided the house from the
street, she could see the long deserted thoroughfare with its double
line of lamps, their flames shining dull through the mist.
Reuben watched her. The clear curve of the lifted arm, the beautiful
lines of the half-averted face stirred his already excited senses.
“Judith!”
She turned her face, with its almost ecstatic look, towards him, letting
fall the curtain.
There were some chrysanthemums like snowflakes in her bodice, scarcely
showing against the white, and as she turned, Reuben bent towards her
and laid his hand on them.
“I am going to commit a theft,” he said, and his low voice shook a
little.
Judith yielded, passive, rapt, as his fingers fumbled with the gold pin.
It was like a dream to her, a wonderful dream, with which the whirling
maze of dancers, the heavy scents, the delicious music were inextricably
mingled. And mingling with it also was a strange, harsh sound in the
street outside, which, faint and muffled at first, was growing every
moment louder and more distinct.
Reuben had just succeeded in releasing the flowers from their fastening;
but he held them loosely, with doubtful fingers, realizing suddenly what
he had done.
Judith shivered, vaguely conscious of a change in the moral atmosphere.
The noise in the street was very loud, and words could be distinguished.
“What is it they are saying?” he cried, dropping the flowers, springing
to the aperture, and pulling back the curtain.
Outside the house stood a dark figure, a narrow crackling sheet flung
across one shoulder. A voice mounted up, clear in discordance through
the mist:
“Death of a Conservative M.P.! Death of the member for St. Baldwin’s!”
“Ah, what is it?”
Cold, white, trembling, she too heard the words, and knew that they were
her sentence.
He turned towards her; on his face was the look of a man who has escaped
a great danger.
“Poor Ronaldson is dead. It has come suddenly at the last. No doubt I
shall find a telegram at home.”
He spoke in his most every-day tones, but he did not look at her.
She summoned all her strength, all her pride:
“Then I suppose you will be going down there to-morrow?”
Her voice never faltered.
“No; in any case I must wait till after the funeral.”
He looked down stiffly. It was she who kept her presence of mind.
“Don’t you want to buy a paper and to tell Adelaide?”
“If you will excuse me. Where shall I leave you?”
“Oh, I will stop here. The dance is just over.”
He moved off awkwardly; she stood there white and straight, and never
moving.
At her feet lay her own chrysanthemums, crushed by Reuben’s departing
feet.
She picked them up and flung them into the street.
At the same moment a voice sounded at her elbow:
“I have found you at last.”
“Is this our dance, Mr. Lee-Harrison?”