Thelma Part 52

His eyes darkened suddenly. "Sometimes. Awfully so! And in that condition I become a burden to myself and my friends."

"Never be serious!" interposed Beau Lovelace, "it really isn't worth while! Cultivate the humor of a Socrates, and reduce everything by means of close argument to its smallest standpoint, and the world, life, and time are no more than a pinch of snuff for some great t.i.tantic G.o.d to please his giant nose withal!"

"Your fame isn't worth much then, Beau, if we're to go by that line of argument," remarked Errington, with a laugh.

"Fame! By Jove! You don't suppose I'm such an arrant donkey as to set any store by fame!" cried Lovelace, a broad smile lighting up his face and eyes. "Why, because a few people read my books and are amused thereby,--and because the Press pats me graciously on the back, and says metaphorically, 'Well done, little 'un!' or words to that effect, am I to go crowing about the world as if I were the only literary chanticleer? My dear friend, have you read 'Esdras'? You will find there that a certain king of Persia wrote to one 'Rathumus, a story-writer.'

No doubt he was famous in his day, but,--to travesty _hamlet_, 'where be his stories now?' Learn, from the deep oblivion into which poor Rathumus's literary efforts have fallen, the utter mockery and uselessness of so-called _fame_!"

"But there must be a certain pleasure in it while you're alive to enjoy it," said Lord Winsleigh. "Surely you derive some little satisfaction from your celebrity, Mr. Lovelace?"

Beau broke into a laugh, mellow, musical, and hearty.

"A satisfaction shared with murderers, thieves, divorced women, dynamiters, and other notorious people in general," he said. "They're all talked about--so am I. They all get written about--so do I. My biography is always being carefully compiled by newspaper authorities, to the delight of the reading public. Only the other day I learned for the first time that my father was a greengrocer, who went in for selling coals by the half-hundred and thereby made his fortune--my mother was an unsuccessful oyster-woman who failed ignominiously at Margate--moreover, I've a great many brothers and sisters of tender age whom I absolutely refuse to a.s.sist. I've got a wife somewhere, whom my literary success causes me to despise--and I have deserted children. I'm charmed with, the accuracy of the newspapers--and I wouldn't contradict them for the world,--I find my biographies so original! They are the result of that celebrity which Winsleigh thinks enjoyable."

"But a.s.sertions of that kind are libels," said Errington, "You could prosecute."

"Too much trouble!" declared Beau. "Besides, five journals have disclosed the name of the town where I was born, and as they all contradict each other, and none of them are right, any contradiction on _my_ part would be superfluous!"

They laughed,--and at that moment Lady Winsleigh joined them.

"Are you not catching cold, Thelma?" she inquired sweetly. "Sir Philip, you ought to make her put on something warm,--I find the air growing chilly."

At that moment the ever-ready Sir Francis Lennox approached with a light woolen wrap he had found in the hall.

"Permit me!" he said gently, at the same time adroitly throwing it over Thelma's shoulders.

She colored a little,--she did not care for his attention, but she could not very well ignore it without seeming to be discourteous. So she murmured, "Thank you!" and, rising from her chair, addressed Lady Winsleigh.

"If you feel cold, Clara, you will like some tea," she said. "Shall we go indoors, where it is ready?"

Lady Winsleigh a.s.sented with some eagerness,--and the two, beautiful women--the one dark, the other fair--walked side by side across the lawn into the house, their arms round each other's waists as they went.

"Two queens--and yet not rivals?" half queried Lovelace, as he watched them disappearing.

"Their thrones are secure!" returned Sir Philip gaily.

The others were silent. Lord Winsleigh's thoughts, whatever they were, deepened the lines of gravity on his face; and George Lorimer, as he got up from his couch on the gra.s.s, caught a fleeting expression in the brown eyes of Sir Francis Lennox that struck him with a sense of unpleasantness. But he quickly dismissed the impression from his mind, and went to have a quiet smoke in the shrubbery.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"La rose du jardin, comme tu sais, dure peu, et la saison des roses est bien vite ecoulee!"--SAADI.

Thelma took her friend Lady Winsleigh to her own boudoir, a room which had been the particular pride of Sir Philip's mother. The walls were decorated with panels of blue silk in which were woven flowers of gold and silver thread,--and the furniture, bought from an old palace in Milan, was of elaborately carved wood inlaid with ivory and silver. Here a _tete-a-tete_ tea was served for the two ladies, both of whom were somewhat fatigued by the pleasures of the day. Lady Winsleigh declared she must have some rest, or she would be quite unequal to the gaieties of the approaching evening, and Thelma herself was not sorry to escape for a little from her duties as hostess,--so the two remained together for some time in earnest conversations and Lady Winsleigh then and there confided to Thelma what she had heard reported concerning Sir Philip's intimate acquaintance with the burlesque actress, Violet Vere. And they were both so long absent that, after a while, Errington began to miss his wife, and, growing impatient, went in search of her. He entered the boudoir, and, to his surprise, found Lady Winsleigh there quite alone.

"Where is Thelma?" he demanded.

"She seems not very well--a slight headache or something of that sort--and has gone to lie down," replied Lady Winsleigh, with a faint trace of embarra.s.sment in her manner. "I think the heat has been too much for her."

"I'll go and see after her,"--and he turned promptly to leave the room.

"Sir Philip!" called Lady Winsleigh. He paused and looked back.

"Stay one moment," continued her ladys.h.i.+p softly. "I have been for a long time so very anxious to say something to you in private. Please let me speak now. You--you know"--here she cast down her l.u.s.trous eyes--"before you went to Norway I--I was very foolish--"

"Pray do not recall it," he said with kindly gravity "_I_ have forgotten it."

"That is so good of you!" and a flush of color warmed her delicate cheeks. "For if you have forgotten, you have also forgiven?"

"Entirely!" answered Errington,--and touched by her plaintive, self-reproachful manner and trembling voice, he went up to her and took her hands in his own. "Don't think of the past, Clara! Perhaps I also was to blame a little--I'm quite willing to think I was. Flirtation's a dangerous amus.e.m.e.nt at best." He paused as he saw two bright tears on her long, silky lashes, and in his heart felt a sort of remorse that he had ever permitted himself to think badly of her. "We are the best of friends now, Clara," he continued cheerfully, "and I hope we may always remain so. You can't imagine how glad I am that you love my Thelma!"

"Who would not love her!" sighed Lady Winsleigh gently, as Sir Philip released her hands from his warm clasp,--then raising her tearful eyes to his she added wistfully, "You must take great care of her, Philip--she is so sensitive,--I always fancy an unkind word would kill her."

"She'll never hear one from me!" he returned, with so tender and earnest a look on his face, that Lady Winsleigh's heart ached for jealousy. "I must really go and see how she is. She's been exerting herself too much to-day. Excuse me!" and with a courteous smile and bow he left the room with a hurried and eager step.

Alone, Lady Winsleigh smiled bitterly. "Men are all alike!" she said half aloud. "Who would think he was such a hypocrite? Fancy his dividing his affection between two such contrasts as Thelma and Violet Vere!

However, there's no accounting for tastes. As for man's fidelity, I wouldn't give a straw for it--and for his morality--!" She finished the sentence with a scornful laugh, and left the boudoir to return to the rest of the company.

Errington, meanwhile, knocked softly at the door of his wife's bedroom--and receiving no answer, turned the handle noiselessly and went in. Thelma lay on the bed, dressed as she was, her cheek resting on her hand, and her face partially hidden. Her husband approached on tiptoe, and lightly kissed her forehead. She did not stir,--she appeared to sleep profoundly.

"Poor girl!" he thought, "she's tired out, and no wonder, with all the bustle and racket of these people! A good thing if she can rest a little before the evening closes in."

And he stole quietly out of the room, and meeting Britta on the stairs told her on no account to let her mistress be disturbed till it was time for the illumination of the grounds. Britta promised,--Britta's eyes were red--one would almost have fancied she had been crying. But Thelma was not asleep--she had felt her husband's kiss,--her heart had beat as quickly as the wing of a caged wild bird at his warm touch,--and now he had gone she turned and pressed her lips pa.s.sionately on the pillow where his hand had leaned. Then she rose languidly from the bed, and, walking slowly to the door, locked it against all comers. Presently she began to pace the room up and down,--up and down,--her face was very white and weary, and every now and then a shuddering sigh broke from her lips.

"Can I believe it? Oh no!--I cannot--I will not!" she murmured. "There must be some mistake--Clara has heard wrongly." She sighed again.

"Yet--if it is so,--he is not to blame--it is I--I who have failed to please him. Where--how have I failed?"

A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped in her walk to and fro.

"It cannot be true!" she said half aloud,--"it is altogether unlike him.

Though Clara says--and she has known him so long!--Clara says he loved _her_ once--long before he saw me--my poor Philip!--he must have suffered by that love!--perhaps that is why he thought life so wearisome when he first came to the Altenfjord--ah! the Altenfjord!"

A choking sob rose in her throat--but she repressed it. "I must try not to weary him," she continued softly--"I must have done so in some way, or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard,--it is not for me to ask him questions. I would not have him think that I mistrust him.

No--there is some fault in me--something he does not like, or he would never go to--" She broke off and stretched out her hands with a sort of wild appeal. "Oh, Philip! my darling!" she exclaimed in a sobbing whisper. "I always knew I was not worthy of you--but I thought,--I hoped my love would make amends for all my shortcomings!"

Tears rushed into her eyes, and she turned to a little arched recess, shaded by velvet curtains--her oratory--where stood an exquisite white marble statuette of the Virgin and Child. There she knelt for some minutes, her face hidden in her hands, and when she rose she was quite calm, though very pale. She freshened her face with cold water, rearranged her disordered hair,--and then went downstairs, thereby running into the arms of her husband who was coming up again to look, as he said, at his "Sleeping Beauty."

"And here she is!" he exclaimed joyously. "Have you rested enough, my pet?"

"Indeed, yes!" she answered gently. "I am ashamed so be so lazy. Have you wanted me, Philip?"

"I always want you," he declared. "I am never happy without you."

She smiled and sighed. "You say that to please me," she said half wistfully.

"I say it because it is true!" he a.s.serted proudly, putting his arm round her waist and escorting her in this manner down the great staircase. "And you know it, you sweet witch! You're just in time to see the lighting up of the grounds. There'll be a good view from the picture-gallery--lots of the people have gone in there--you'd better come too, for it's chilly outside."