CHAPTER XXVII.

Everard does not go abroad. He hears the cheers of the tenantry

assembled to greet the bride and bridegroom as they sweep past his gate

to the park, and scarcely winces. He hunts almost daily, and appears in

society just as usual; but he does not meet Lady Saunderson, half to

his relief, half to his disappointment, for the county has decreed that

for some time at least her ladyship is to reside in Coventry.

Her escapade has followed that of her sister too quickly for even the

most forward sycophant to overlook it; and so day after day the bride

sits waiting in her beautiful drawing-room for the visitors that do not

come, vowing vengeance silently, determined to give back slight for

slight, snub for snub, while her husband, scowling, wanders through

the still stately house to which he is for a few weeks confined with a

sharp attack of rheumatism.

The officers of the Kelvick garrison give a large ball toward the

middle of February, to which every one is invited. Everard dutifully

puts in an appearance, though he is half dead with fatigue after a

heavy day's hunting. He throws himself into an easy-chair in a cool

corner behind a curtain, and is just dropping into a pleasant slumber,

when one of his hosts, who has but lately joined the garrison, awakes

him with a vehement nudge.

"I say, Everard, you know every one here; tell me who is that girl

coming in at the door with the big yellow man? By Jove, she is a

stunner! Who is she--eh, eh?"

Everard turns languidly, and then the blood rushes to his face, for

within half a dozen yards of him stands Pauline, her dusky head erect,

looking at him with eyes lustrous, calm, superbly indifferent--a look

that seems to say, "Forgive me, if you like. Come to my side again. I

do not want you; but I will not repel you. Come!"

He stands rooted to the spot as she passes him by, her dress brushing

his knees. Her lovely face softens for a moment; she smiles half sadly,

half contemptuously, as she whispers--

"Not a word, Jack? Well, perhaps you are right. Do not wear the willow,

though; I am not worth it."

"Who is she--eh, Everard? Can't you speak?"

"Oh, she is a--a Lady Saunderson! I say, Archer, introduce me to that

girl in pink over there, will you? Jolly-looking girl!"

His fatigue forgotten, unfelt, Everard is soon whirling quickly round

the room, whispering nonsense into his partner's ear, but feeling

everywhere, though he looks not directly at her again, the cold

beautiful face of the woman he loves, watching him, reading the tempest

of his mind.

"Very good--very good indeed, Jack; but take care not to overdo it.

Take your pleasure a little more languidly; it will be much more

effective," says Miss Wynyard, laying her hand encouragingly on her

cousin's shoulder.

"Have you spoken to her, Florry?" he asks eagerly.

"No, I have only bowed and half smiled; but in a month or two," says

Miss Wynyard frankly, "I guess our hands will meet in amity. You won't

mind, will you, Jack? But you know the principle of my life has always

been to make friends with the mammon of iniquity; and it is a principle

that I have found to pay in the long run. How well she is looking, and

how grandly she carries it off, doesn't she? I always knew there was a

spice of the fiend in Pauline Lefroy. Do you know, Jack, I rather pity

Sir Arthur, ill-conditioned animal that he is. He must have loved her

to--"

"Loved her! Pshaw! He never meant to marry her from the beginning; he

actually said so one day at the club to a fellow I know; and it was

only when he found I was in possession that he appeared on the scene

and took to dogging her again."

"Well, never mind, Jack; you have come out of the business capitally,

with a dignity and a reserve that quite astonished me."

"Oh," says Everard candidly, "I wear well before the world! But I don't

mind telling you, Flo, that I was pretty well bowled over at first,

raved like the victim of a melodrama, wanted to pursue the guilty pair,

brain the bridegroom, _et cætera_. Fortunately a friend of sterner

stuff than I am, who had also been tried by the fire, steadied me in

time, and made me acknowledge that there is not a woman living worth

the sigh of an honest man; and so I dried up."

"Not a woman living?" repeats Miss Wynyard, with an earnestness very

foreign to that young person's tone in a ball-room or elsewhere.

"Stuff, Jack, stuff! Loose statements of that kind do not patent your

good sense or your cure, let me tell you. You were born of a woman,

were you not--a woman whom, as well as I can remember, you loved,

reverenced, and mourned--"

"Shut up, Flo," he says roughly, his face flushing; "I won't stand

preaching from you! As if--as if I would compare my mother--"

"That's just the point, dear boy, I wish to lead you to. The memory

of your mother ought to save you from falling into the deep cant, the

twopenny cynicism of the jilted man who labels every woman worthless

because he happens to be ill-used by an ambitious flirt. No, all women

are not worthless; and there are many in the world too good for you,

Jack--ay, too good for men ten times better than you. I know of one who

once loved a man--Jack, are you listening? I am going to tell you a

most interesting story."

He turns listlessly.

"Ay, Flo? A woman you once knew of, who loved a man. And what was her

history?"

"'A blank, my lord; she never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud.

Feed on her damask cheek.'"

"More fool she! Was he well off?"

"But, being a little lady," continues Flo, needless of the

interruption, "as proud, shy, sensitive, as she was loving, she did

not, Viola-wise, sit, like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief,

but moved among her fellow-men with placid unconcern and a heart-whole

surface, did her duties bravely, took her pleasures as gayly as any

other girl of her age, and even trained herself to smile in the face

of the man she loved when the dolt was chanting the praises of another

woman. Her mother even did not know her secret."

"And yet she confided in you! You must have a fund of sympathy in

reserve somewhere, Flo, that I could never reach."

"She never confided in me. I found it out in an unguarded moment, when

she believed herself alone. The man had been twisting a bit of scented

weed around his finger, and, when he left her, carelessly threw it into

her lap; then she--"

"Glued it to her quivering lips, watered its limpness with her tears,

_et cætera_. A very piteous tale! Flo, the question is, Was the man

worth such a Spartan struggle? What was he like? Had he twelve thousand

a year?"

"The man?" she repeats carelessly. "Oh, well, he wouldn't have caused

me a heart-ache! He was much like other men, commonplace, selfish, yet

good-natured in the main, young, fairly good-looking, and worth about

three thousand a year. You know him better than I."

"Do I?"--stifling a yawn.

"Yes, for that man's father is your father's son."

"Let me see. Sisters and brother I have none, but that man's father

is my father's son. That's a disputed problem, Flo; it disturbed the

intellects of the Royal Nutshire for three hours at mess. The real

answer is 'My son,' you know."

"You have no son, I believe."

"Then the solution is myself--eh? You mean to intimate that I am the

hero of this touching minor tale. Who is Viola, pray?

"Find out."

"Not I," he says, with a short laugh. "I don't believe in her

existence. Come along, Flo; we're missing a capital waltz."

They revolve in silence. When the music ceases, he leads her to a

retired corner of the refreshment-room, and, while they are sipping

ices, he says, with a sneaky tone of would-be indifference--

"Well, you might as well tell me who she is, Flo."

"Who is who?" she asks, turning her head aside to hide her triumphant

smile. "Oh, Viola! What is the good of telling you anything about her

if you believe she is a myth?"

"I should have the opportunity of proving the truth of your flattering

tale."

"But why should I betray the secret she has guarded so gallantly? It is

very mean and unmanly of you to try to worm it out of me, Jack."

"Why did you tell me anything about it? I gave you no opening for the

anecdote," he says rather warmly.

"I told you, old boy," Miss Flo replies, laying her hand with a

sisterly gesture on his shoulder, "because I like you and--and

wish to do you good. I fancied that the contemplation of another's

disappointment might alleviate yours, and perhaps distract your mind

from--from other people," she winds up rather lamely.

"I see--I see. You're a good girl, Flo--thanks, thanks, my dear--but

you must have thought me a precious fool to accept a legend of the

kind as gospel, to fancy any woman nourishing a hopeless passion for

a commonplace, selfish, soft-headed simpleton with an income of only

three thousand a year!"

"Believe it or not as you like," she answers hotly. "What I tell you is

true and the girl is here in this room--not a dozen yards from us."

He looks eagerly to right and left, and shrugs his shoulder impatiently.

"There are about forty smiling virgins within a dozen yards of me. How

am I to pick out the stricken one? As you have gone so far, Florrie,"

he whispers coaxingly, "you might as well commit yourself altogether."

"Well, Jack," she answers, with well-feigned reluctance, "whatever your

faults may be, you are a gentleman, and--and, if I do you'll take no

advantage, or betray--"

"Of course not. What do you take me for?"

"The girl is Cicely Deane."

"Cicely Deane!" he echoes, with an incredulous laugh. "Well, Flo, I

think you might have made a better shot than that. Cicely Deane! Why,

she looks on me as a sort of elder brother! I've known her since she

was a baby. It's too preposterous, you know. Why, I should rather

suspect you, _ma belle_, of falling in love with--with me than that

self-possessed, cold-blooded little saint, the legitimate prey of the

Church!"

"The Church has not had much success as yet. Last week she refused the

Honorable and Reverend Basil Wendrop, Lord Hareford's second son, a

divine with the profile of an Antoninus and the tongue of a Chrysostom;

her parents are in despair about it. Ah, there is my partner at the

door looking for me--Major Newton! I want you to look at him rather

particularly, Jack, because I'm half contemplating matrimony with that

lucky individual."

"Newton? O, I know him well! He's a very good fellow--just returned

from India, has he not?"

"Yes; he has been away six years. He turned up the other day and calmly

informed me that I had solemnly promised long ago to marry him if he

could make a certain competence--a most ridiculous sum! I don't think

I could have mentioned it, even in the school-room. Seven thousand

pounds--absurd, you know! I don't remember the circumstance--in fact, I

could scarcely recall the poor man's existence when he first appeared;

but it seems he has been living on that promise for the last six years

in one of the most unhealthy holes in India, starving and screwing to

make up that wretched sum; and--now--now--if you please, he wants me to

marry him and share it with him. He fell in love with me when I was a

great fat-faced tomboy in the school-room, and has never thought of any

one since--ridiculous man!"

"And you think of rewarding his fidelity? Do you like him, Flo?"

"Yes," she answers, with a faint blush, "I--I think I rather like him.

He--he is nothing much to look at, of no particular position, not well

off, and--and I suppose--in fact, I know--I could do better; but--"

"Yes?"

"Six years! A long time, wasn't it, Jack?" she says a little wistfully.

"Six years--and--and I scarcely thought of him once after he left--poor

Claud! All the others whom I jilted, or who jilted me, were on their

legs a month or two afterward. I don't think, Jack, I have a very

bounteous store of affection to bestow on any man, I don't think I have

it in me to care for any one as I care for myself; still six years, you

know--"

"Is a good spell. I would marry him if I were you. You have knocked

about long enough now, Flo. I shouldn't be surprised if you found

matrimony a pleasant change. Anyhow, you'll have my best wishes," says

Everard heartily.

"Don't congratulate me yet," she answers flurriedly. "I--I haven't made

up my mind in the least. After all, matrimony is a desperate plunge;

once you're in, you can never get out again; and--and I could do so

much better--so much better. There's Pelham Windsor. I had a great case

with him at Brighton before Christmas, and he has asked mother and

me down to his place in Hampshire next month--the Towers--a regular

show-place--stabling for forty horses--"

"Pelham Windsor! He's a most insufferable little snob, Flo--scarcely up

to your shoulder--and was divorced from his first wife."

"I know, I know," she answers petulantly. "But it was all her fault;

she--"

"Of course, of course--it always is!"

"Flor--Miss Wynyard, I have been looking for you everywhere. This is

our dance, I believe."

Major Newton stands before them, a man of about thirty-six, with a

lean yellow face, sad brown eyes, and a long gaunt body emaciated by

fever--a most incongruous cavalier for the lively florid Miss Wynyard,

who however rises at once and lays her hand a little nervously on his

arm, whispering to her cousin before she goes--

"Remember, Jack, I have your promise; not a word, a look, a sign to

betray--"

"Oh, stuff, Florrie!" he answers impatiently. "Do you fancy I gave your

nonsense a second thought? Absurd!"

Nevertheless, absurd as it seems, the nonsense does occupy his thoughts

a good deal during the remainder of the evening, and, instead of

following Lady Saunderson's conquering movements with stealthy feverish

glance, as he has been doing hitherto, he finds himself watching little

Cicely taking her pleasure, with an interest and a curiosity she has

never roused in him before.

But, watch as closely as he may, he can detect no confirmatory sign,

not even when he is bending over her, whispering pretty compliments in

her ear. When his arm encircles her waist, her face within a few inches

of his own, whirling round the room, her breath comes none the faster,

her color does not change, her eye does not sink under his puzzled

animated scrutiny.

"Flo," he whispers to his cousin, when he is cloaking her on her

departure about two hours later, "you were out, my dear--quite out.

You are either grossly mistaken, or were willfully misleading me. I've

watched her, and there's not a sign of truth in your revelation--not a

sign. I've watched her."

"Oh, if you have, Jack, of course that settles the question! I was

grossly mistaken. Who could deceive your gimlet-eyes?"

"Not you, _ma belle_, not you, at any rate!" he retorts quickly,

smiling into the girl's handsome sparkling face. "You've taken the

plunge, Florrie! I thought you would. Come behind the curtain until I

congratulate you on the spot."

Just as their lips are meeting in frank cousinly good-will, the drapery

parts, and Major Newton, with no very pleasant expression, glares in on

them.

Miss Wynyard, with the experience of many past misconceptions, hastens

to explain the position of affairs, which her _fiancé_ accepts

amicably; and for the first time in the annals of her checkered career

the course of Miss Wynyard's love runs smooth into the sea of matrimony

about two months later.

She makes the major an excellent wife; and, though, as the years roll

on, their means do not increase in proportion to their family, Mrs.

Newton is never heard to complain or taunt her sober husband with the

fact that she might have done better--not even when Madame Armine loses

her custom altogether, and necessity has trained her hitherto idle

fingers to turn her dresses and darn her children's stockings. The

friendship between her and Lady Saunderson does not prosper, for their

paths naturally diverge somewhat widely, and, when they meet again,

after the lapse of some years, those erst kindred spirits find they

have scarce a thought, a wish, a pleasure in common.

Pauline looks upon Florrie with contempt, as having degenerated into a

dowdy, baby-ridden drudge, and Florrie pities Lady Saunderson's unloved

and childless lot, chained to a man whom she despises and dislikes,

with no light ahead to relieve the gray dreariness of coming age, when

her beauty and her social triumphs will be things of the past.