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April's Lady: A Novel

<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Now the nights are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings."</div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> "Why, so it is! Our own Dicky, in the flesh and an admirable temper apparently," says Mr. Beauclerk. "Shall we come and interview him?" They move forward and presently find themselves at Mr. Browne's elbow; he is, however, so far lost in his kindly ridicule of the poor silly revolving atoms before him, that it is not until Miss Kavanagh gives his arm a highly suggestive pinch that he learns that she is beside him. "Wough!" says he, shouting out this unclassic if highly expressive word without the slightest regard for decency. "What fingers you've got! I really think you might reserve that kind of thing for Mr. Dysart. He'd like it." This is a most infelicitous speech, and Miss Kavanagh might have resented it, but for the strange fact that Beauclerk, on hearing it, laughs heartily. Well, if he doesn't mind, it can't matter, but how silly Dicky can be! Mr. Beauclerk continues to laugh with much enjoyment. "Try him!" says he to Miss Kavanagh, with the liveliest encouragement in his tone. If it occurs to her that, perhaps, lovers, as a rule, do not advise their sweethearts to play fast and loose with other men, she refuses to give heed to the warning. He is not like other men. He is not basely jealous. He knows her. He trusts her. He had hinted to her but just now, so very, very kindly that she was suspicious, that she must try to conquer that fault—if it is hers. And it is. There can be no doubt of that. She had even distrusted him! "Is that your advice?" asks Mr. Browne, regarding him with a rather piercing eye. "Capital, under the circumstances, but rather, eh?——Has it ever occurred to you that Dysart is capable of a good deal of feeling?" "So few things occur to me, I'm ashamed to say," says Beauclerk, genially. "I take the present moment. It is all-sufficing, so far as I'm concerned. Well; and so you tell me Dysart has feeling?" "Yes; I shouldn't advise Miss Kavanagh to play pranks with him," says Dicky, with a pretentiously rueful glance at the arm she has just pinched so very delicately. "You're a poor soldier!" says she, with a little scornful uptilting of her chin. "You wrong Mr. Dysart if you think he would feel so slight an injury. What! A mere touch from me!" "Your touch is deadlier than you know, perhaps," says Mr. Browne, lightly. "What a slander!" says Miss Kavanagh, who, in spite of herself, is growing a little conscious. "Yes; isn't it?" says Beauclerk, to whom she has appealed. "As for me——" He breaks off suddenly and fastens his gaze severely on the other side of the room. "By Jove! I had forgotten! There is my partner for this dance looking daggers at me. Dear Miss Kavanagh, you will excuse me, won't you? Shall I take you to your chaperone, or will you let Browne have the remainder of this waltz?" "I'll look after Miss Kavanagh, if she will allow me," says Dicky, rather drily. "Will you?" with a quizzical glance at Joyce. She makes a little affirmative sign to him, returns Beauclerk's parting bow, and, still with a heart as light as a feather, stands by Mr. Browne's side, watching in silence the form of Beauclerk as it moves here and there amongst the crowd. What a handsome man he is! How distinguished! How tall! How big! Every other man looks dwarfed beside him. Presently he disappears into an anteroom, and she turns to find Mr. Browne, for a wonder, as silent as herself, and evidently lost in thought. "What are you thinking of?" asks she. "Of you!" "Nonsense! What were you doing just then when I spoke to you?" "I have told you." "No, you haven't. What were you doing?" "Hankering!" says Mr. Browne, heavily. "Dicky!" says she indignantly. "Well; what? Do you suppose a fellow gets rid of a disease of that sort all in a minute? It generally lasts a good month, I can tell you. But come; that 'Beautiful Star' of yours, that 'shines in your heaven so bright,' has given you into my charge. What can I do for you?" "Deliver me from the wrath of that man over there," says Miss Kavanagh, indicating Mr. Blake, who, with a thunderous brow, is making his way towards her. "The last was his. I forgot all about it. Take me away, Dicky; somewhere, anywhere; I know he's got a horrid temper, and he is going to say uncivil things. Where" (here she meanly tries to get behind Mr. Browne) "shall we go." "Right through this door," says Mr. Browne, who, as a rule, is equal to all emergencies. He pushes her gently towards the conservatory she has just quitted, that has steps leading from it to the illuminated gardens below, and just barely gets her safely ensconced behind a respectable barricade of greenery before Mr. Blake arrives on the spot they have just vacated. They have indeed the satisfaction of seeing him look vaguely round, murmur a gentle anathema or two, and then resign himself to the inevitable. "He's gone!" says Miss Kavanagh, with a sigh of relief. "To perdition!" says Mr. Browne in an awesome tone. "I really wish you wouldn't, Dicky," says Joyce. "Why not? You seem to think men's hearts are made of adamant! A moment ago you sneered at mine, and now——By Jove! Here's Baltimore—and alone, for a wonder." "Well! His heart is adamant!" says she softly. "Or hers—which?" "Of course—manlike—you condemn our sex. That's why I'm glad I'm not a man." "Why? Because, if you were, you would condemn your present sex?" "Certainly not! Because I wouldn't be of an unfair, mean, ungenerous disposition for the world." "Good old Jo!" says Mr. Browne, giving her a tender pat upon the back. By this time Baltimore has reached them. "Have you seen Lady Baltimore anywhere?" asks he. "Not quite lately," says Dicky; "last tune I saw her she was dancing with Farnham." "Oh—after that she went to the library," says Joyce quickly. "I fancy she may be there still, because she looked a little tired." "Well, she had been dancing a good deal," says Dicky. "Thanks. I dare say I'll find her," says Baltimore, with an air of indifference, hurrying on. "I hope he will," says Joyce, looking after him. "I hope so too—and in a favorable temper." "You're a cynic, Dicky, under all that airy manner of yours," says Miss Kavanagh severely. "Come out to the gardens, the air may cool your brain, and reduce you to milder judgments." "Of Lady Baltimore?" "Yes." "Truly I do seem to be sitting in judgment on her and her family." "Her family! What has Bertie done?" "Oh, there is more family than Bertie," says Mr. Browne. "She has a brother, hasn't she?" <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Meantime Lord Baltimore, taking Joyce's hint, makes his way to the library, to find his wife there lying back in a huge arm-chair. She is looking a little pale. A little ennuyée; it is plain that she has sought this room—one too public to be in much request—with a view to getting away for a little while from the noise and heat of the ballroom. "Not dancing?" says her husband, standing well away from her. She had sprung into a sitting posture the moment she saw him, an action that has angered Baltimore. His tone is uncivil; his remark, it must be confessed, superfluous. Why does she persist in treating him as a stranger? Surely, on whatever bad terms they may be, she need not feel it necessary to make herself uncomfortable on his appearance. She has evidently been enjoying that stolen lounge, and now—— The lamplight is streaming full upon her face. A faint color has crept into it. The white velvet gown she is wearing is hardly whiter than her neck and arms, and her eyes are as bright as her diamonds; yet there is no feature in her face that could be called strictly handsome. This, Baltimore tells himself, staring at her as he is, in a sort of insolent defiance of the cold glance she has directed at him. No; there is no beauty about that face; distinctly bred, calm and pure, it might possibly be called charming by those who liked her, but nothing more. She is not half so handsome as—as—any amount of other women he knows, and yet—— It increases his anger towards her tenfold to know that in her secret soul she has the one face that to him is beautiful, and ever will be beautiful. "You see," says she gently, and with an expressive gesture, "I longed for a moment's pause, so I came here. Do they want me?" She rises from her seat, looking very tall and graceful. If her face is not strictly lovely, there is, at all events, no lack of loveliness in her form. "I can't answer for 'they,'" says Baltimore, "but"——he stops dead short here. If he had been going to say anything, the desire to carry out his intention dies upon the spot. "No, I am not aware that 'they' or anybody wants you particularly at this moment. Pray sit down again." "I have had quite a long rest already." "You look tired, however. Are you?" "Not in the least." "Give me this dance," then says he, half mockingly, yet with a terrible earnestness in his voice. "Give it to you! Thank you. No." "Fearful of contamination?" with a smiling sneer. "Pray spare me your jibes," says she very coldly, her face whitening. "Pray spare me your presence, you should rather say. Let us have the truth at all hazards. A saint like you should be careful." To this she makes him no answer. "What!" cries he, sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bête noire? your fear of gossip?" "I fear nothing"—icily. "You do, however. Forgive the contradiction," with a sarcastic inclination of the head. "But for this fear of yours you would have cast me off long ago, and bade me go to the devil as soon as—nay, the sooner the better. And indeed if it were not for the child——By the bye, do you forget I have a hold on him—a stronger than yours?" "I forget nothing either," returns she as icily as before; but now a tremor, barely perceptible, but terrible in its intensity, shakes her voice. "Hah! You need not tell me that. You are relentless as—well, 'Fate' comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance with me to-night, when all the County is present, and Mother Grundy goes to bed with a sore heart. Scandal lies slain. All will cry aloud: 'There they go! Fast friends in spite of all the lies we have heard about them.' Is it possible you can deliberately forego so great a chance of puzzling our neighbors?" "I can." "Why, where is your sense of humor? One trembles for it! To be able to deceive them all so deliriously; to send them home believing us on good terms, a veritable loving couple"—he breaks into a curious laugh. "This is too much," says she, her face now like death. "You would insult me! Believe me, that not to spare myself all the gossip with which the whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!" His short-lived, most unmirthful mirth has died from him, he has laid a hand upon the table near him to steady himself. "You are candid, on my soul," says he slowly. She moves quickly towards the door, her velvet skirt sweeping over his feet as she goes by—the perfume of the violets lying in her bosom reaches him. Hardly knowing his own meaning, he puts out his hand and catches her by her naked arm, just where the long glove ceases above the elbow. "Isabel, give me this dance," says he a little wildly. "No!" She shakes herself free of him. A moment her eyes blaze into his. "No!" she says again, trembling from head to foot. Another moment, and the door has closed behind her. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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