CHAPTER XVI
“Her name is Laura Treherne,” said Leonard.
“Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before.”
“Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen Una Rolfe,” put in Jack, coolly. “But I say, Len, what has come to us? We’ve both caught the universal epidemic at the same time. It’s nothing wonderful in me, you know – but you —you, who wouldn’t look at a woman! Have you got it bad, Len?”
“Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls the supremest in one’s life, has come to me. As a novice in the art of love-making, I come to you for advice.”
“Why, it’s easy enough in your case. You know where to put your hand upon the lady. What are you to do? Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, and go and sweep the chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you’re the tax collector, or ‘come to look at the gas meter.’ You’ve got half a dozen plans, but I – what am I to do? I’ve seen the most beautiful creature in existence, and if I’m not in love with her – ”
“I should say you were,” said Leonard, gently.
“Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded cottage empty. But what am I to do? I haven’t the faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old gentleman with the hatchet may have murdered his whole family – her included – or emigrated to Australia.”
“It is very strange. Didn’t you notice any sign of a move about the place the first night you were there?”
“No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going on for a hundred years – excepting Una – and meant to go on for another hundred. Len, I’m afraid we’ve been bewitched. Perhaps it’s all a dream; I haven’t been down to Hurst and you haven’t been down to Wermesley. We shall wake up directly – oh, no! The poor squire! Len, it’s all true, and we’re a couple of young fools!”
“Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until three days ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have learned what love is.”
“So have I – I have also learned the vanity of human wishes, and the next thing I shall have to learn will be some way of earning a livelihood. I should prefer an honest one, but – poor men can’t afford to be particular, and honesty doesn’t seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so hard up and reckless that I could become a bank director or a member of Parliament without feeling a pang of conscience.”
Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was plainly to be detected running through Jack’s banter; and Leonard knew that when Jack was bitter – which was but once a year, say – he was reckless.
“We must talk it over. Sit down – get off that table; you’re making a perfect hash of my papers – and let’s talk it over. You won’t go out tonight.”
“Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club.”
“No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack.”
“What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want to gamble? I’ve no money to lose.”
“That’s the very reason you’ll want to play. Do keep at home tonight.”
“I couldn’t do it, old man,” he said. “I’m on wires – I’m all on fire. If I sat here much longer, I should get up suddenly, murder you, and sack the place. The Savage has got his paint on, and is on the trail.”
“Don’t be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep away from the club tonight. Well, well – let the ecarte alone, at any rate.”
“All right, I’ll promise you that. I won’t touch a card tonight. Ecarte! I couldn’t play beggar-my-neighbor tonight! Len, I wish you were a bigger man; I’d get up a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit down here! I couldn’t do it. I want to be doing something – something desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; I can’t – I should go mad! Don’t sit up for me.”
Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of the two bedrooms which adjoined the common sitting-room, and, with a shake of his head, muttered, “Poor Jack!” and returned to his work.
Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing to shout a good-night, as he passed down the stairs, went into the street, and jumped into a hansom, telling the man to drive to the Hawks’ Club.
It was rather early for the “Hawks,” and only a few of them had fluttered in. It was about the last club that such a man as Jack should have been a member of. It was fast, it was expensive, it was fashionable, and the chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that play at any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there.
When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was almost empty, but the suspicious-looking tables were surrounded by chairs stuck up on two legs, denoting that they were engaged, and those men who were present were all playing.
Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of greeting rose to welcome him.
“Halloa; you back, Jack!” said a tall, military-looking man, who was known as the “Indian Nut,” because he was one of the most famous of our Indian colonels. “You’re just in time to take a hand at loo.”
“No; come and join us,” said young Lord Pierrepoint, from another table, at which nap was being played.
But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you could rest perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he shook his head firmly.
“Nary a card.”
“What! Don’t you feel well, Jack?”
“No, I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.”
“Dear me, I didn’t know you did eat, Jack. However, man, come and sit down, and don’t fidget about the room like that.”
“Len’s right, the club won’t do neither. I couldn’t hold a card straight tonight. I’ll get some dinner, and go back, and we’ll have it all over again.”
It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most resolves, Jack meant to keep it. But alas! before he had got through with his soup, the door opened and two men strolled in.
They were both young and well-known. The one was Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the other, the young Lord Dalrymple, whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed his forehead, as the French say.
Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, and made straight for his table.
“Why, here’s the Savage!” exclaimed Dalrymple. “Back to his native forest primeval.”
“Been on the war trail, Jack?” asked Sir Arkroyd. “How are the squaws and wigwams? Seriously, where have you been, old man?”
“Yes, I have been on the war trail,” he said.
“And got some scalps, I hope,” said Dalrymple. “What are you doing – dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we join him? It’s so long since I’ve eaten anything that I should like to watch a man do it before I make an attempt.”
The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and the two men chatted and conned over the carte.
“You don’t look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in the forest, or what?”
“Yes, I’ve been going it in the forest, Dally.”
“Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his old friend, Spotted Bull,” said Arkroyd. “Bet you anything he hasn’t been out of London, Dally.”
“Take him,” said Jack. “I’ve been out of London on a little matter of business.”
“He’s been robbing a bank,” said Arkroyd, “or breaking one.”
“Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow what’s going on.”
“Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he’ll try to cut us out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a joint stock company, all club together, you know, and work it in that way, the one who wins to share with the other fellows.”
“Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is it a sweepstake, a handicap, or what – ”
“No, my noble Savage. It’s the heiress.”
“Oh,” said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret critically.
“What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut the world or have heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps someone has left you a fortune, old man; if so, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be – to help you spend it.”
A flush rose to Jack’s face, and his eyes flashed. He had been drinking great bumpers of the Hawks’ favorite claret – a heady wine which Jack should never have touched at any time, especially not tonight.
“No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. But you’d better tell me about this heiress, I see, or you’ll die of disappointment. Who is she – where is she? – what is she? Here’s her good health, whoever she is,” and down went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one.
“Do you remember Earlsley?” said Arkroyd. “Oh, no, of course not, you must have been in your cradle in the wigwam in that time. Well; old Wigsley died and left his money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out to be a girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew where to find her; but at last there comes a claimant in the shape of a girl from one of the Colonies – Canada. That isn’t a colony, is it, though? Australia – anywhere – nobody knows, you know. She came over with her belongings – a rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long hair, like, a – a – what’s got a long head of white hair, Dally?”
“Try patriarch,” murmured the marquis.
“Well, in addition to the money, and there’s about a million, more or less – she’s got the most beautiful, that isn’t the word, most charming, fascinating little face you ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as if you never could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived.”
“Ark, you’ve had too much champagne.”
“No; ’pon my honor. Isn’t it right, Dally?”
“Yes, and if she smiles,” said Dalrymple, “you never could feel another moment’s unhappiness. The prettiest mouth – and when it opens, her teeth – ”
“Oh, confound it!” exclaimed Jack, brusquely. “You needn’t run over her points as if she were a horse; I don’t want to buy her.”
As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or two, for while Arkroyd had been talking he had been thinking of that other beautiful girl – not a doll, with teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and ethereal – a dream – not a fascinating heiress.
“Buy her!” exclaimed Arkroyd. “Listen to him! Don’t I tell you she’s worth a million?”
“And I’d make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn’t a penny, and would have me,” said Dalrymple.
“Try her,” said Jack, curtly.
“No use, my dear Savage,” he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of down ruefully. “She won’t have anything to say to yours truly, or to any one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn’t tempt her. She’s got one already. Don’t I tell you she’s one of the Earlsley lot? No; we’ve all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and signed it ‘A. H.;’ but she told him to his face that she didn’t care for poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn’t it, Ark?”
“First-rate,” said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written it. “But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell.”
“On whom?” said Jack, waking up again.
“On Lady Bell – Isabel Earlsley is her name. You’re wool-gathering tonight, Jack.”
“Oh, Lady Bell, is it?” said Jack, carelessly. “Go ahead. Anything else?”
“No, that’s all, excepting that I’ll wager a cool thousand to a china orange that you’ll change your tone when you see her, Savage.”
“Perhaps,” said Jack, “but your description doesn’t move me; not much, Ark. You’re not good at that sort of thing. It isn’t in your line. The only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth.”
“Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let us have another bottle of Cliquot.”
Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he sat and took his share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. For all the attention he paid to the chatter of his two friends they might not have been present.
His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden Forest, to the girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence and loveliness, had floated like a dream across his life.
He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story.
It was a strange coincidence that they should both have met their fates at one and the same time, or nearly so.
He would have thought it stranger still if he could have lifted the veil of the future and seen how closely the web of his life was woven with the woof, not only of Una’s, but of Laura Treherne, and also of Lady Bell Earlsley.
All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life’s book, and had begun a new chapter in which these three women were to take a part.
But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing of this, and – I am sorry to have to say it – he was rapidly arriving at that condition in which it is dangerous to be within a mile of that fascinating fluid. When a man passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and dissatisfaction to one of comparative comfort, and that by the aid of the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering glass aside and go home.
Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the billiard-room, and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course.
For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting his promise to Len; he would not enter the card-room, but he stuck to pool and champagne.
CHAPTER XVII
I am not going to apologize for our hero, nor am I going to gloss over his faults with any specious special pleading. No man is either wholly good or wholly bad; certainly Jack was not wholly good; he was human, very human, and blessed, or cursed, with a hot, passionate blood, which made him more liable to trip than most men. But, at the same time, this in justice must be said of him, that he very rarely sinned in this way.
Tonight his blood was at full heat; the love which had sprung up like a tongue of flame in his heart burned and maddened him, and to this newly-born love was added the disappointment and bewilderment of Una’s sudden disappearance. Add, too, that he had been overstrained and upset, and – well, there are the excuses and apologies, after all.
Somewhere about two o’clock, when the club was full with men who had dropped in from theater and ball-room, and amidst the popping of corks and click of pool balls, a certain feeling came over poor Jack that he had taken quite as much, and more, of the sparkling juice than was good for him; and with that consciousness came the resolution to go home.
The game was just over, and without a word he put up his cue, motioned to a footman to bring him his hat, and, scarcely noticed in the crowd and bustle, slowly descended the broad and indeed magnificent staircase for which and its palatial hall the club was famous.
He descended very slowly, with his hand on the balustrade, and having reached the bottom, he filled a glass with water from the crystal filter that stood on a side table in the porter’s box, and sallied out.
The night air struck upon his hot brow in a cool and welcome fashion, and Jack stood for a moment or two, fighting with the hazy and stupefying effects of the night’s work.
“I won’t go home yet,” he muttered. “Len will be cut up; he always is. He’s as bad as a father – almost as bad as a mother-in-law. Well, I didn’t touch the cards, anyhow. And if it had not been for those two idiots, Ark and Dally, I shouldn’t have got so far into the champagne. How bright the stars shine – an unaccountable number of them tonight.” Poor Jack! “Never saw such a quantity! No, I won’t go home yet. I’ll walk it off if I have to walk till tomorrow morning. Where am I? Ah! where is she? Thank Heaven, she isn’t near me now! I’m glad she’s gone; I’m glad I shall never see her any more. I’m not fit to see her; not worthy to touch her hand. But I did touch it,” and, with a kind of wonder at his audacity, he stretched out his hand and stared at it under the gas-lamp.
Then he walked on perfectly indifferent to the direction, perfectly indifferent to the weariness which was gradually – no, rapidly – coming on him.
Just at this time, while he was walking off the drowsy dream that had got possession of him, a stream of carriages was slowly moving down Park Lane, taking up from one of the best known houses in town – Lady Merivale’s.
Lady Merivale was one of the leaders of ton and had been one as long as most middle-aged people could remember. To be seen at Lady Merivale’s was to be acknowledged as one of that small but powerful portion of humanity known as “the upper ten.”
It was one of her ladyship’s grand balls, and not only were the ball and drawing-rooms full, but the staircase also, and any one wishing to enter or exit had to make his way down a narrow line flanked on either side by the youth and nobility of the best kind of society.
That it had been a great success no one who knows the world – and Lady Merivale – needs to be told. It had, perhaps, been one of her greatest, for in addition to two princes of the blood royal, she had secured the great sensation of the day, the young millionairess, Lady Isabel Earlsley.
And this was no slight achievement, for Lady Bell, as she was generally called, was a wilful, uncertain young personage, from whom it was very hard to procure a promise, and who, not seldom, was given to breaking it when made, at least, so far as acceptation of invitations went.
But she was there tonight; as the next issue of the Morning Post would testify.
Jack had been really too careless and scornful in his indifference. Lady Bell was not only beautiful, she was – what was more rare than beauty – charming. She was rather short than tall; but not too short. She had a beautiful figure; not a wasp waist by any means, but a natural figure, full of power and grace. Her skin was, well, colonial; delicately tinted and creamy; and her eyes – it is difficult to catalogue her eyes, because their lights were always changing – but the expression which generally predominated was one of half-amused, half-mocking light.
With both expressions she met the open admiration of the gilded youths who thronged round her, amused at their foppery, mocking at their protestations of devotion.
Tonight she was dressed neither magnificently nor superbly, but with, what seemed to the women who gazed at her with barely concealed envy, artful simplicity.
Her dress was of Indian muslin, priceless for all its simplicity; and she wore glittering in her hair, on her arms, and on her cream-white bosom, pearls, that, in quantity and quality would have made the fortune of any enterprising burglar.
By her side stood – for they were moving toward the door, on their way to an exit – an elderly woman, with an expressionless face, simply and plainly dressed. She was generally spoken of as the watch dog; but she scarcely deserved that name, for Lady Bell was quite capable of watching over herself; and Mrs. Fellowes, the widow of the Indian colonel, was too mild to represent any sort of dog whatever.
Surrounded by a crowd of devoted courtiers, the great heiress and her companion moved toward the door where the hostess stood receiving the farewells and thanks of her guests; and when one thinks of the many hundred times Lady Merivale had stood by that door, and undergone that terrible ordeal, one is filled with amazement and awe at her courage and physical strength.
For forty years she had been standing at doors, receiving and meeting guests; yet she stood tonight as smiling and courageous as ever.
At last Lady Bell reached her hostess, and Lady Merivale, tired and done up as she was, gave her special recognition.
“Must you go, Lady Bell? Well, good-night. And thank you for making my poor little dance a success. Thank you very much.”
Lady Bell said nothing, but she smiled “in her old colonial” way, as they called it, and threaded through the lane of human beings on the stairs.
“Lady Earlsley’s carriage!” shouted the footman in the gorgeous Merivale livery, and a little brougham drove up.
Lady Bell hated show and magnificence.
Her stables and coach-houses were crowded with horses and carriages, her wardrobes filled to repletion with Worth’s costumes and Elise’s “confections,” as bonnets are called now-a-days, but a plain little brougham was her favorite vehicle, and the simplest of costumes pleased her best.
All the way down the stairs she had to nod and smile and exchange farewells, and at the bottom, in the hall, on the stone steps themselves, she was surrounded by men eager to secure the privilege of putting her into her little brougham.
But she avoided them all, and sprang in as if she had not been dancing for four hours, and throwing herself back into the corner, exclaimed:
“Thank goodness, that is over. Poor old Fellowes! you are worn out. Confess it.”
“I am rather tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Fellowes, who had been sitting against a wall all the evening.
“Tired! of course you are; it’s ever so much more tiring looking on than dancing, and joining in the giddy round. I don’t feel a bit tired; I’m a little bored.”
“Bored! what a word, my dear Bell,” murmured Mrs. Fellowes, sleepily.
“It’s a good word – it’s an expressive word – and it just means really what I feel.”
“And yet you received more attention than any woman – any girl – in the room, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Fellowes.
“My money-bags may have done so,” said Lady Bell, scornfully; “not I. Do you think that if I were as penniless as one of Lady Southerly’s daughters, I should receive as much attention? Fellowes, don’t you take to flattering me. I couldn’t stand that.”
“I don’t want to flatter you, my dear Bell; but when the prince himself dances twice with you – ”
“Of course he did. I am a celebrity. I am the richest young woman in the kingdom, and he would have done it if I had been as ugly as sin – which isn’t ugly, by the way.”
“What strange things you say,” murmured Mrs. Fellowes, with mild rebuke. “I’m sure no girl received more attention than you have tonight. I sat and watched you, my dear, and a spectator sees more of the game than a player.”
“You are right, it is all a game, a gamble,” retorted Lady Bell. “All those nice young men were playing pitch and toss who should make the hardest running with the great heiress. Do you think I am blind? I can see through them all, and I despise them. There isn’t a man among them but would pay me the same court if I were as plain as Lucifer – ”
“My dear Bell – ”
“But it is true,” said Lady Bell. “I can read them all. And if they knew how I despised them, even while I smile upon them, they would keep at arm’s length for very shame. I wish I hadn’t a penny in the world.”
“My dear Bell!” ejaculated Mrs. Fellowes, really and truly shocked at such a fearfully profane wish.
“I do! I do! I should then find out if any one of them cared for me – for myself. You say I am beautiful, but you are so partial; do you think I am beautiful enough to cause any man to risk his all in life for my sake?”
“I don’t know. I don’t just follow you,” said poor Mrs. Fellowes.
“No, you are half asleep,” retorted Lady Bell. “There, curl yourself up and snooze. I shan’t talk any more.”
Lady Bell leaned forward, and looked up at the stars – the same stars that seemed so numerous to poor Jack – and pondered over the events of the evening.
It was true that a prince of the blood had danced there with her; it was true that, all through the evening, she had been surrounded by a court of the best men in London; it was true that she had sent one half the women home burning with envy and malice and all uncharitableness; but still she was not happy.
“No,” she murmured, unheard by the sleeping companion; “the dream of my life has not yet been fulfilled. I have not yet met the man to whom I could say, ‘I am yours, take me!’ Perhaps I never shall; and until I do, I will remain Lady Bell, though they buzz round my money-bags till I am deaf with their hum.”
The brougham was going at a great pace, simply because the coachman very reasonably desired to get home and to bed; and Lady Bell saw the houses flit past as if they had been part of a panorama got up for her special amusement.
But suddenly the brougham swerved, and, indeed, nearly upset, and the stillness of the night was broken by what seemed remarkably like an oath by the coachman.
Lady Bell felt that something was wrong; but she neither turned color nor lost her presence of mind.
Putting her head, with a thousand pounds of jewels on it, through the window, she said, in clear tones:
“What is the matter, Jackson?”
“I – whoa! I don’t quite know, my lady; I think it is a man. Something came right across the road. Yes, it is a man.”
Lady Bell opened the brougham door, stepped into the road – the light from the lamp flashing on her pearls – and went toward the horse.
“Keep away from her hind legs, for goodness’ sake, my lady,” ejaculated Jackson. “Keep still, will you!” this was of course addressed to the horse.
“What is it? what is it?” asked Lady Bell, peering about.
“Here, my lady, on the near side – on the left. It’s down in the road, whatever it is.”
Lady Bell went behind the brougham to the near side – she was too well acquainted with horses and their moods to cross in front of the horse’s eyes – and looked about her. For a moment she could see nothing, but presently, when her eyes had become used to the darkness, she saw a man lying, as it seemed, right under the horse’s body.
Her impulse – and she always acted on that impulse – was to pull him out. But to pull a man even an inch is a difficult task even for the strongest girl, and after a moment’s tug she was about to tell Jackson to alight while she stood at the horse’s head, when suddenly the prostrate man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham as if it had been specially built and brought there for that purpose.
Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm.
“What has happened?” she said, anxiously. “Were you run over – are you hurt?”
Jack – for it was Jack – opened his eyes and stared at her with the gravity of a man suddenly sobered.
“No,” he said, “I am not hurt. Don’t blame the man, it was my fault. Not hurt at all. Good-night.”
And he feels for his hat, which at that moment was lying under the carriage a shapeless mass.
As he spoke Lady Bell saw something drop on to his hand, and looking at it saw that it was a drop of blood.
With a shudder – for she could not bear the sight of blood – she said:
“Not hurt! Why, you are bleeding.”
“Am I?” said Jack, gravely and curtly. “It will do me good. Don’t you be alarmed, miss. I am used to being upset, and my bones are too hard to break. Good-night.”
And he made for the pavement pretty steadily. But a hand, soft and warm, and strong also, stayed him.
“Stop,” said Lady Bell; “I am sure you are hurt. How did you come to be run over?”
“Got in the way of the horse, I suppose,” said Jack, quietly. “That is the usual way.”
“But – but,” said Lady Bell; and she looked at the handsome face scrutinizingly.
Then she stopped, for her scrutiny had discovered two facts; first, that the individual who had been run over was a gentleman; secondly, that he had been drinking.
“Wait,” she said, still keeping her hand on his arm; “you are not fit to go alone without some assistance, and I am sure you are hurt. Look, you are bleeding.”
“A mere nothing,” said Jack; “don’t trouble. Allow me to put you in – I shall get home all right.”
Lady Bell, still keeping her eyes fixed on his face, shook her head.
“I couldn’t leave you like this,” she said. “Where do you live?”
“Where do I – live?” repeated Jack. “Spider Court, Temple. It’s no distance from here.”
“The Temple!” exclaimed Lady Bell. “It must be miles away.”
“A hansom,” smiled Jack.
“But there are no cabs here, not one. I cannot leave you like this – you must get into the brougham.”
“Not for worlds! I have given you quite enough trouble,” he said. “I shall find my way home somehow.”
“No,” she said; “I cannot let you go without seeing you safe into a cab. There are none here. You do not know – I do not know – how much you are hurt. You must let me take you to your home.”
“I assure you I am all right,” he said.
“And I refuse to accept your assurance,” said Lady Bell, with a little shudder at the streak of blood which oozed from his forehead. “Come, you will not refuse to obey a lady. I wish you to enter my brougham.”
“No, I can’t refuse to obey a lady,” he said.
“Then come with me,” said Lady Bell.
“Where to, my lady?” asked Jackson, who was used to her ladyship’s willfulness, and sat, patient as Job, waiting for the issue of this strange adventure.
“To – where did you say?” asked Lady Bell.
“Spider Court,” said Jack; “but I wish you’d let me go out and walk. It must be right out of your way.”
“Spider Court, Temple,” said Lady Bell, and the brougham rolled on.
Through it all Mrs. Fellowes had remained in the deep sleep which the gods vouchsafe to good women of her age, and the two – Lady Bell and Jack – were, to all intents and purposes, alone.
Lady Bell looked at him as he sat in his corner, the thin, red stream trickling down from his forehead, and shuddered; not at him, but at the blood.
“How did you come to be run over?” she asked. “Did you fall?”
“Must have done,” he said, coolly; “anyway I’ll swear it wasn’t the coachman’s fault.”
“I am not going to blame the coachman,” said Lady Bell, with the shadow of a smile.
“That’s right,” said Jack. “It was all my fault. I’d been – been to see a favorite aunt.”
“You had been to your club,” said Lady Bell.
“How did you know that?” he said.
Lady Bell smiled again, and Jack, his eyes fixed upon her, thought the smile wonderfully fascinating.
“A little bird told me,” she said.
“The little bird was right,” said Jack, shaking his head, with penitence and remorse written on every feature. “I have been dining at my club. Perhaps the little bird told you everything else?”
“Yes; the little bird also whispered that you had – ”
“Drank too much champagne? Confound those fellows! Wonderful little bird!” muttered Jack.
“It is very wicked of you,” said Lady Bell, gravely, her eyes fixed on his face, that, notwithstanding its streak of red, looked wonderfully handsome.
While she looked, she almost convinced herself that she had never seen such a handsome face, nor such frank eyes.
“It was very wicked of you,” she repeated, in a voice pitched in a low key, no doubt out of consideration for the sleeping watch dog.