CHAPTER XXI.

"Wonderful--charming! A polished actress!" "Would make her fortune on

the London boards, by Jove!" "Talk of Mrs. Langtry--she's a stick to

Miss Lefroy!" "As to looks, who would compare them?" "Who indeed?"

"Your sister was charming--perfect, Mrs. Armstrong. I congratulate you

most sincerely on her success. She is the feature of the evening, the

center of all attraction. By Jove, I never thought I could sit out an

hour and a half of amateuring until now--she chained me to my seat! A

perfect Pauline!"

Addie listens to it all with a triumphant smile, and her eyes follow

her beautiful sister, sailing through the ball-room in her gay

theatrical feathers, with glowing eyes, her hair piled high over her

forehead, powdered to perfection, blazing in diamonds.

"She is lovely, isn't she, Tom? You liked her acting, didn't you?"

"Her looks and her graces would carry almost any acting through," he

answers temperately; "and we Nutshire notabilities are not subtle

dramatic critics. It is a case of _Venus Victrix_ with Pauline

to-night. Yes, Addie, yes; I do think her lovely."

"Lovely?" echoes a harsh voice in Addie's ear which makes her start

uncomfortably. "Yes, Armstrong, a good few share your opinion."

"Mr. Everard, I never saw you coming up. Allow me to congratulate

you. Your Melnotte was so affecting; there were two old ladies near

me almost in hysterics during the cottage scene. The comedy too was

capital! What is the matter with you? Do you intend to play the

tragedian all night, or have you come to ask me to dance at last?" she

says gayly, her heart sinking at the sight of the lad's woe-begone face

and the cold fire of his blue eyes.

"No, Mrs. Armstrong, I haven't come to ask you to dance, but to say

good-by to you; I am going home."

"Going home, and the ball only beginning? Oh, nonsense, Jack!" she

says, unconsciously using the familiar name, and laying her hand on his

arm with a sisterly gesture.

"Yes," he says, a quiver in his voice, "I am going to follow your

advice at last, Mrs. Armstrong. I am throwing up the game; she gave me

the last straw five minutes ago."

"What did she do?"

"She would promise me only one dance; and, when I went up for it

a minute ago, that fellow she is dancing with now--that hulking

Guardsman--"

"Sir Arthur Saunderson?"

"Yes--claimed it too. She decided in his favor. She met him only a week

ago, and I--I have followed her like a dog for the last five months,

have anticipated her slightest wish, have obeyed her every wanton whim,

have put my neck under her foot, let her trample me as she would!"

"Oh, why, why did you not do as I told you, Jack? I warned you in time.

I told you Pauline was too young, too careless, too high-spirited to be

touched by love as yet; she told you so herself."

"Oh, yes!" he laughs bitterly. "She told me, she gave me a few yards

to gambol in; but, when she saw me two or three times at the end of my

tether, jibbing to get away, to be free, she gave me a little chuck

that brought me back to her side in double-quick time. Oh, she did not

use me well--your sister! I know I was warned; I don't mean to reproach

any one or anything but my own besotted infatuation. I didn't expect

her to fall in love with me. Oh, no, no! And I don't want any quarter

now; I wouldn't take it, in fact. What chance should I have competing

against Saunderson's sodden face, his fine leaden eye, his baronetcy,

his twelve thousand a year? What chance indeed! I'm not going to

try--not I! I'm off the day after to-morrow. Any commission for Norway,

Mrs. Armstrong?"

"Norway? Are you going there?"

"Yes, in my cousin Archie Cleveland's yacht. We sail from Cowes next

week--a jolly bachelor party."

"I wish you _bon voyage_, and a speedy cure," she says earnestly,

pressing his hot hand.

"Thanks; awfully--Oh, yes. I'm sure I shall get over it fast enough!

I feel I shall, in fact; I've a strong constitution. Good-by, Mrs.

Armstrong, good-by, Armstrong! Thanks, old fellow, for all your good

wishes, your kindness to me, _et cætera_. I'll not forget them, though

I will her--ay, fast enough, Heaven helping me!"

He takes a long hungry look at the girl whom he loves flying past him

in his rival's arms, his heavy tow-colored mustache almost brushing her

lovely glowing face, upturned to his.

The poor boy turns aside to hide the unmanly moisture clouding his

bright eyes, and finds Addie's pitying little palm still imprisoned in

his grasp.

"Oh, Ad--Mrs. Armstrong," he cries with a sob in his voice, "if--if

Heaven had only given her your tender heart, your sweet nature--"

"And her own face and figure," puts in Addie quickly, with a soft

laugh. "But, Jack, what would my poor husband have left then? Not a

very promising patchwork--eh?"

"Your husband? Oh, he is a lucky fellow!"

"Is he?" says Addie, wheeling round and looking up into her husband's

face with a bright, eager, questioning look. "Is he, Tom?"

Years after Everard remembered the look, the attitude of husband, of

wife, as they stood thus gazing at each other under the big magnolia

shrub--remembered the tune of the waltz that pursued him as he walked

down the avenue, his brain on fire, his heart bursting with wrath,

love, and despair.

* * * * *

"There, Tom--look! What a disgraceful state your table is in! All the

letters that arrived while you were in New York higgledy-piggledy all

over the place! When are you going to settle them?"

"When I have time; they are not of much importance--only bills,

prospectuses, begging-letters, receipts--"

"May I settle them for you? Do let me; I'll do it so nicely. All the

receipts in one drawer, bills in another, prospectuses in another, and

begging-letters in the waste-paper basket--"

"Bravo, Addie, bravo! I see you know how to set to work."

"Then I may do it? You do not mind my opening them? You have no

secrets?"--running her hand lightly through the pile. "What is this

large square envelope, crested and monogrammed, addressed in a lady's

writing, kissing the face of the income-tax? You look guilty, Tom! Am I

touching pitch?"

"You are touching an invite to a dinner-party--a gentleman's

dinner-party at the Challice's on Friday week," he says, laughing.

"Would you like it answered? I'll answer it for you. You can not go,

Tom, for I've written to Aunt Jo to come next week; and the chances are

ten to one she'll arrive on that very day, and it would look very bad

if you were absent, wouldn't it? You were always such a favorite of

hers, you know."

"I won't be absent then. I'm not sorry for the excuse; those aldermanic

feasts are becoming rather too much for my digestion of late. I'm

afraid I'm getting old, Addie, and feeble--"

"Old and feeble!" she retorts. "I never saw a stronger-looking man than

you; you have a grasp of iron. Taunt me with being like Hebe indeed!

You are a mixture of Vulcan and Samson."

"Samson's days were short on earth; you may be a widow before you are

thirty, Addie."

She looks at him with startled eyes; but his face is careless and

unconscious. She moves away hurriedly.

"I may be a widow before I am thirty! The very words they used a year

ago; and I--I--actually laughed--yes, I remember, I laughed. What a

wretch I was! And now--now I can not bear to hear them, even in jest,

not even in jest, my dear, my dear!"

It is a week after the theatricals. An unusual spell of quiet and

peace has followed the excitement and racket of the preceding month,

for Robert and the "Royal Nutshire" have left the soil for their

annual month's picnicking in the Long Valley, and Miss Wynyard, not

able to bear the reaction of dullness, has taken flight likewise, and

is enjoying herself in town, while Pauline, in deserted Nutsgrove,

pores greedily over the accounts of her gay doings, and valiantly

determines that her sister shall have a comfortable _pied-à-terre_ in

the neighborhood of Eaton Square or Park Lane next season.

Meanwhile Addie is working briskly at clearing the study-table. The

waste-paper bag is filling rapidly with the fluent literature of

professional beggary, when suddenly a long sheet of paper bearing

Madame Armine's address on the top, closely covered with scratchy

French writing, drops in dismay from her hands. It is Miss Lefroy's

account for goods supplied from the sixteenth of January to the first

of May, and three figures represent the total. Poor Addie stares at

them stupidly, rubs her eyes, even goes to the window for a moment to

take breath and clear the cobwebs from her brain; but when she comes

back they confront her still. One hundred and eighty-four pounds!

Pounds--not pence, not shillings even, but pounds, sterling pounds!

"What do they mean?" she asks aloud. "It must--it must be a stupendous

mistake. How could any girl wear or order one hundred and eighty-four

pounds' worth of clothes in less than six months? Impossible! She

has been remarkably well-dressed of late, I have noticed, and--and

I remember Lady Crawford telling me that she is considered one of

the best got-up girls in Nutshire. Her last ball-dress was very

handsome; but--but, all the same, this bill is simply incredible. It's

a mistake--of course it's a mistake! It's an account of some large

family--the Douglases or the Hawksbys probably--and they have got hers;

that's it, of course. I'll just run my eyes down the items to make

sure. How hard they are to make out! Let me see--let me see. Costume

of white satin _merveilleuse_, and gauze and flounces of Cluny lace,

sixteenth of January--forty-five pounds. That sounds like the dress

she got for the Arkwrights'--satin gauze and Cluny lace; but--but

forty-five pounds! I thought it would be ten at the outside. To be

sure, I never ordered a dress for myself, so--so I don't know; but

forty-five pounds! It's awful, awful!"

With head down-bent she goes slowly and laboriously through each

item; when she reaches the total, her face is crimson with shame and

bewilderment. She pushes the document from her, walks feverishly up and

down the room, then takes up the account again.

"_Sortie du bal_ of silver plush trimmed in blue fox-fur--twenty-eight

pounds ten shillings. That can't--can't mean that simple little dolman

she wore going to the theatricals the other night? Impossible! I'll go

and ask her about this at once."

She rushes off, scared and excited, calling her sister's name loudly.

No answer comes to her in the house. She passes out, the ominous

document trembling in her hands.

"Here I am, under the ash in the tennis-ground! What's the matter? What

has happened? Any one hurt?"

"No," pants Addie, "no; it's a bill of yours, an awful bill, from

Armine--since last January. I can't make it out; it must be wrong. I

got such a shock when I saw the total."

She parts the drooping boughs of the ash, and finds herself confronted

by her sister, crimson with confusion and anger, and Sir Arthur

Saunderson, caressing his tawny mustache, an amused smile stealing over

his insolent dissipated face.

"Oh, is that you, Sir Arthur?" she exclaims, with scant courtesy,

knowing that her husband has a strong personal objection to that

gentleman. "I did not know you were here."

"Came half-hour 'go. Pleasure a-finding Miss Lefroy in the grounds; did

not go the house," he answers languidly. "Lovely aft'noon, ain't it?"

"Lovely," she answers shortly, sitting down beside Pauline, with an

irritated gesture that says as plainly as words could say, "You're in

the way, sir; your departure would be acceptable."

But he takes not the slightest notice; and presently, after a few half

whispered sentences, he and Pauline rise together for the ostensible

purpose of examining some early rose-blooms in the pleasure-ground,

leaving her alone.

"Horrid man!" she mutters indignantly. "How can Pauline stand him? She

knows perfectly well too that Tom objects to his coming here. If his

morals are as bad as his manners, I don't wonder he does, I'm sure!

And, oh dear me, I remember the days when I used to imagine a Guardsman

an angel of fascination and manly grace, something every girl must fall

down before and worship at the first glance, not an insolent goat-faced

clown like--Well, I am getting bitter! I hope he'll go soon, in time

for me to go over that bill with Pauline before Tom returns. I wonder

has he seen it yet? If he has, I shall not be able to look him in the

face. One hundred and eighty-four pounds! More than the whole six of us

had to live on for two years! One hundred and eighty-four pounds! It

grows bigger every time I think of it. One--"

"Addie, Addie, my love!"

She starts, and then leans forward in an attitude of breathless,

puzzled expectancy, her hands clasped. Was she dreaming? Did her senses

deceive her? Surely a voice whispered her name, a voice that takes her

back with a thrill of reluctant pain to a summer night four years ago.

She turns and finds herself clasped in a man's arms, feels a shower of

kisses falling on her scared and shrinking face.