Diana Tempest Volume I Part 5

"Pay up, then," said Swayne. "If you won't bear it, pay up."

Colonel Tempest was staggered.

"I have not a thousand pounds I could lay my hands on," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "much less ten. I've been broke these last five years. You know that."

"Raise it," said Swayne. "I ain't against that; quite the reverse.

There's been a deal of time and money wasted already. All the parties will be glad to have the money down. He's in England again now, thank the Lord. That's a saving of expense. I was waiting to have a look at him myself when you came up. I've never set eyes on him before."

"I can't raise it," said Colonel Tempest with the despairing remembrance of repeated failures in that direction. "I can't give security for five hundred."

"If you can't pay it, and you can't raise it," said Swayne, shaking off Colonel Tempest's hand, and thrusting his own into his pockets, "what's the good of talking? Sorry not to part friends, Colonel; but what's done is done. You can't send back shoes to the maker that have come to pinch on wearing 'em. You should have thought of that before. Business is business, and a bet's a bet."

CHAPTER V.

"Alas! the love of women! It is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing."

BYRON.

Rooms seldom represent their inmates faithfully, any more than photographs their originals, and a poorly-furnished room, like a bad photograph, is, as a rule, a caricature. But there are fortunate persons who can weave for themselves out of apparently incongruous odds and ends of _bric-a-brac_, and china, and cretonne, a habitation which is as peculiar to them as the moss coc.o.o.n is to the long-tailed t.i.t, or as the spillikins, in which she coldly cherishes the domestic affections, are to the water-hen.

Madeleine Thesinger's little boudoir looking over Park Lane was as like her as a translation is to the original. Madeleine was one of the many young souls who mistake eccentricity for originality. It was therefore to be expected that a life-sized china monkey should be suspended from the ceiling by a gilt chain, not even holding a lamp as an excuse for its presence. Her artistic tendencies required that scarlet pampas gra.s.s should stand in a high yellow jar on the piano, and that the piano itself should be festooned with terra-cotta Liberty silk. A little palm near had its one slender leg draped in an _impromptu_ Turkish trouser, made out of an amber handkerchief. Even the flowers are leaving their garden of Eden now. They require clothing, just as chrysanthemums must have their hair curled. We shall put the lily into corsets next!

There was a faint scent of incense in the room. A low couch, covered with striped Oriental rugs and cus.h.i.+ons, was drawn near the fire. Beside it was a small carved table--everything was small--with a few devotional books upon it, an open Bible, and a hyacinth in water. A frame, on which some elaborate Church embroidery was stretched, kept the Bible in countenance. The walls were draped as only young ladies, defiant of all laws of taste or common sense, but determined on originality, can drape them. The _portiere_ alone fell all its length to the ground. The other curtains were caught up or tweaked across, or furled like flags against the walls above chromos and engravings, over which it was quite unnecessary that they should ever be lowered. The pictures themselves were mostly sentimental or religious. Leighton's "Wedded" hung as a pendant to "The Light of the World." The small room was crowded with tiny ornaments and brittle conceits, and mirrors placed at convenient angles. There was no room to put anything down anywhere.

Sir Henry Verelst, when he was ushered in, large and stout and expectant, instantly knocked over a white china mandarin whose tongue dropped out on the carpet as he picked it up. He replaced it with awe, tongue and all, and then, taking refuge on the hearth-rug, promenaded his pale prawn-like eyes round the apartment to see where he could put down his hat. But apparently there was no vacant place, for he continued to clutch it in a tightly-gloved hand, and to stare absently in front of him, sniffing the unmodulated sniff of solitary nervousness.

Sir Henry had a vacant face. The only change of which it was capable was a change of colour. Under the influence of great emotion he could become very red, instead of red, but that was all. He was a stout man, and his feelings never got as far as the surface; they probably gave up the attempt half way. He was feeling a great deal--for him--at this moment, but his face was as stolid as a doll's. He had fallen suddenly and desperately in love, bald head over red ears in love, with Madeleine, after his own fas.h.i.+on, since she had shown him so decidedly that he was dear to her on that evening a fortnight ago when he had hovered round her in his usual "fancy free" and easy manner, merely because she was the prettiest girl in the room. He now thought her the most wonderful and beautiful and religious person in the world. He had been counting the hours till he should see her again. He did not know how to bear being kept waiting in this way; but he did not turn a hair, possibly because there were not many to turn. He stood as if he were stuffed. At last, after a long interval, there was a step in the pa.s.sage. He sighed copiously through his nose, and changed legs; his dull eyes turned to the _portiere_.

A French maid entered, who in broken English explained that mademoiselle could not see monsieur. Mademoiselle had a headache. Would monsieur call again at five o'clock?

Sir Henry started, and became his reddest, face, and ears, and neck; but, after a momentary pause, he merely nodded to the woman and went out, knocking over the same china figure from the same table as he did so, but this time without perceiving it.

As soon as he was gone, the maid replaced the piece of china now permanently tongueless, and then raised her eyes and hands.

"Mon Dieu!" she said below her breath, as she left the room. "Quel fiance!"

A few moments later Madeleine came in her headache appeared to be sufficiently relieved to allow of her coming down now that her betrothed had departed. She pulled down the rose-coloured blinds, and then flung herself with a little s.h.i.+ver on to the couch beside the fire. She was very pretty, very fair, very small, very feminine in dress and manner.

That she was seven and twenty it would have been impossible to believe, except by daylight, but for a certain tinge of laboured youthfulness in her demeanour.

She put up two of the dearest little hands to her small curled head, and then held them to the fire with a gesture of annoyance. Her eyes--they were pretty appealing eyes, with delicately-bistred eyelashes--fell upon her diamond engagement-ring as she did so, and she turned her left hand from side to side to make the stones catch the light.

She was still looking at her ring when the door opened, and "Miss Tempest" was announced.

"Well, Madeleine?" said a fresh clear voice.

"_Dear_ Di!" said Madeleine, rising and throwing herself into her friend's arms. "How good of you to come, and so early, too! I have been so longing to see you, so longing to tell you about everything!" She drew her visitor down beside her on the couch, and took possession of her hand.

"I am very anxious to hear," said Di, disengaging her hand after a moment, and pulling off her furred gloves and boa.

"Let me help you, you dear thing," said Madeleine, unfastening her friend's coat, in which action the engagement-ring took a good deal of exercise. "Is it very cold out? What a colour you have! I never saw you looking so well."

"Really?" said Di, remembering how Madeleine had made the same remark on her return last year from fis.h.i.+ng in Scotland with her face burnt brick red. "One does not generally look one's best after being out in a wind like a knife; but I am glad you think so. And now tell me all about _it_."

Di's long, rather large, white hand was taken into both Madeleine's small ones again, and fondled in silence for a few moments.

Di looked at her with an expression half puzzled, half benevolent, as a Newfoundland might look at a toy terrier. She was in reality five or six years younger than Madeleine, but her height and a certain natural dignity of carriage and manner gave her the appearance of being much older--by a rose-coloured light.

"It was very sudden," said Madeleine in a shy whisper, evidently enjoying the situation.

"How sudden? Do you mean it was a sudden idea on his part?"

"No, you tiresome thing, of course not; but it came upon _me_ very suddenly."

"Oh!"

After all a bite may with truth be called sudden by the angler who has long and persistently cast over that and every other rise within reach.

"You see," said Madeline, "I had not seen him for a long time, and somehow his being so much older and--and everything, and----"

Di recalled the outward presentment of Sir Henry--elderly, gouty, the worse for town wear.

"I see," she said gravely.

There was a pause.

"I knew you would feel with me about it," said Madeleine, affectionately. "I always think you are so sympathetic."

"But you _did_ think it over--it did occur to you before he asked you?"

said the sympathizer in rather a low voice.

"Oh yes! The night before I thought of it."

"The night before?" echoed Di.

"Yes, that last evening at Narbury. I don't know how it was; there were some much prettier girls there than me, but I was quite monopolized by the men--Lord Algy and Captain Graham in particular; it was really most embarra.s.sing. I have such a dislike to being made conspicuous. One on each side of the piano, you know; and, as I told them, they ought not to leave the other girls in the way they were doing. There were two girls who had no one to speak to all the evening. I begged them to go and talk to them, but they would not listen; and Sir Henry stood about near, and would insist on turning over, and somehow suddenly I thought he meant something, but I never thought it would be so quick. Men are so strange.

I sometimes think they look at things _quite_ differently from a woman.

It's such a solemn thought to me that we have got to influence them, and draw them up."

"Or draw them on," said Di gravely--"one or the other, or both at the same time. Yes, it's very solemn. When did you say Sir Henry became sudden?"

"Next morning--the very next morning, after breakfast, in the orchid-house. I just wandered in there to read my letters. It took me entirely by surprise. It is such a comfort to talk to you, dear Di. I know you do enter into it all so."

"Not into the orchid-house," said Di, looking straight in front of her.

"You naughty thing!" said Madeleine, delightedly. "I shall shake you if you tease like that."