Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 15

"Yes, it's a sling," he said casually. "I'd been hunting with the Devon and Somerset; I found London unbearable, and I came down here suddenly.

I meant to write and tell you; but just then I wasn't in the humor to write to any one, even to you. I lost my way in one of the runs, and was riding down the top of the hill here, riding carelessly, I'll admit, for when the horse s.h.i.+ed, I was chucked off. I broke my arm and knocked my head. Oh, don't trouble," he added hastily, as if to ward off her commiseration. "I am all right now; the arm will soon be in working order again."

"I'm very sorry," she said, lifting her eyes to his, but only for a moment. "You look rather pulled down and seedy."

"Oh, I'm all right," he said. "And now, as I have explained my presence here, perhaps you will explain yours."

"I've come here in the _Seagull_," she said. "Father's on board. He said you'd offered to lend the yacht to him--you did, I suppose?"

Drake nodded indifferently.

"Oh, yes," he said. "The _Seagull_ was quite at your father's service."

"Well, father made a party; Sir Archie Walbrooke, Mrs. Horn-Wallis and her husband, Lady Pirbright, and ourselves."

Drake nodded as indifferently as before. He knew the persons she had mentioned; members of the smart set in which he had spent his life--and his money; and Lady Lucille continued in somewhat apologetic fas.h.i.+on:

"We went to the Solent first, for the races; then, when they were all over, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves so much that father--you know what he is--suggested that we should sail round the Devon coast. It hasn't been a bad time; and Sir Archie has been rather amusing, and Mrs. Horn-Wallis has kept things going. Oh, yes; it hasn't been so bad."

"I'm glad you've been amused, Luce," he said, his eyes resting upon the beautifully fair face with a touch of cynicism.

"We'd no idea you were anywhere here," she said, "or, of course, I would have written and asked you to join us; though, I suppose, under the circ.u.mstances----"

She hesitated for a moment, then went on with a little embarra.s.sment, which in no way detracted from her charm of voice and manner:

"I told father that, after what had happened, it was scarcely in good taste to borrow your yacht. But you know what father is. He said that though things were altered, your offer of the _Seagull_ stood good; that you told him you didn't mean to use her this season, and that it was a pity for her to lie idle. And so they persuaded me--very much against my will, I must admit--to join them, and--and here I am, as you see."

Drake puffed at his pipe.

"I see," he said. "I needn't say that you are quite welcome to the yacht, Lucille, or to anything that I have. As you say, things are--altered. How much they are altered and changed, perhaps your letters, if I had received them, would have told me. What was it that you wrote me? Oh, don't be afraid," he added, with a faint smile, as she turned her head away and poked with her sunshade at the crack in the pavement. "I am strong; I can bear it. When a man has come a cropper in every sense of the word, his nerves are braced for the receipt of unwelcome tidings. I beg you won't be uncomfortable. Of course, you have heard the news?"

She glanced at him sideways, and, despite her training, her lips quivered slightly.

"Of course," she said. "Who hasn't? All the world knows it. Lord Angleford's marriage has come upon us like a surprise--a thunderbolt. No one would ever have expected that he would have been so foolish."

Drake looked at her as he never thought that he could have looked at her--calmly, waitingly.

"No one expected him to marry," she went on. "He was quite an old man--well, not old, but getting on. And you and he were always such great friends. He--he always seemed so fond and so proud of you. Why did you quarrel with him?"

"I didn't quarrel with him," said Drake quietly. "As you say, we have always been good friends. He has always been good to me, ever since I was a boy. Good and liberal. We have never had a cross word until now.

But you know my uncle--you know how keenly set he is on politics. He is a Conservative of the old school; one of those old Tories whom we call blue, and who are nearly extinct. G.o.d knows whether they are right or wrong; I only know that I can't go with them. He asked me to stand for a place in the Tory-Conservative interest. It was an easy place; I should have been returned without difficulty. Most men would have done it; but I couldn't. I don't go in very much for principle, either political or moral; but my uncle's views--well, I couldn't swallow them. I was obliged to decline. He cut up rough; sent me a letter with more bad language in it than I've ever read in my life. Then he went and married a young girl--an American."

Lady Lucille heaved a long sigh.

"How foolish of you!" she murmured. "As if it mattered."

Drake filled his pipe again, and smiled cynically over the match as he lit it.

"That's your view of it?" he said. "I suppose--yes, I suppose you think I've been a fool. I dare say you're right; but, unfortunately for me, I couldn't look at it in that way. I stuck to my colors--that's a highfalutin way of putting it--and I've got to pay the penalty. My uncle's married, and, likely enough--in fact, in all probability--his wife will present the world with a young Lord Angleford."

"She's quite a young woman," murmured Lucille, with the wisdom of her kind.

"Just so," said Drake. "So I am in rather a hole. I always looked forward to inheriting Anglemere and the estate and my uncle's money. But all that is altered. He may have an heir who will very properly inherit all that I thought was to be mine. I wrote and told you of this, though it wasn't necessary; but I deemed it right to you to place the whole matter before you, Lucille. I've no doubt that the society papers have saved me the trouble, and helped you thoroughly to realize that the man to whom you were engaged was no longer the heir to the earldom of Angleford and Lord Angleford's money, but merely Drake Selbie, a mere n.o.body, and plunged up to his neck in debts and difficulties."

She was silent, and he went on:

"See here, Luce, I asked you to marry me because I loved you. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you--at that dance of the Horn-Wallises. Do you remember? I wanted you to be my wife; I wanted you more than I ever wanted anything else in my life. Do you not remember the day I proposed to you, there under Taplow Wood, at that picnic where we all got wet and miserable? And you said 'Yes'; and my uncle was pleased. But all is changed now; I am just Drake Selbie, with very little or no income, and a mountain of debts; with no prospects of becoming Lord Angleford and owner of the Angleford money and lands. And I want to know how this change--strikes you; what you mean, to do?"

She glanced up at him sideways.

"You--you haven't got my letters?" she said.

He shook his head.

"I'm--I'm sorry," she said. "It isn't my fault. Father--you know what he would say. He may be right. He said that--that you were ruined; that our marriage would be quite impossible; that--that our engagement must be broken off. Really, Drake, it is not my fault. You know how poor we are; that--that a rich marriage is an absolute necessity for me. Father is up to his neck in debt, too, and we scarcely seem to have a penny of ready money; it's nothing but duns, and duns, and duns, every day in the week; why, even now, we've had to bolt from London because I can't pay my milliner's bill. It's simply impossible for me to marry a poor man. I should only be a drag upon him; and father--well, father would be a drag upon him, too; you know what father is. And--and so, Drake, I wrote and told you that--that our engagement must be considered broken off and at an end."

She paused a moment, and looked from right to left, like some feeble animal driven into a corner, and restlessly conscious of Drake Selbie's stern regard.

"Of course I'm very sorry. You know I'm--I'm very fond of you. I don't think there is any one in the world like you; so--so handsome and--and altogether nice. But what can I do? I can't run against the wish of my father and of all my friends. In fact, I can't afford to marry you, Drake."

He looked at her with a bitter smile on his lips, and a still more bitter cynicism in his eyes.

"I understand," he said; "I quite understand. When you said that you loved me, loved me with all your heart and soul, you meant that you loved Drake Selbie, the heir of Angleford, the prospective owner of Anglemere and Lord Angleford's money; and now that my uncle has married, and that he may have a child which will rob me of the t.i.tle and the money, you draw back. You do not ask whether I have enough, you do not offer to make any sacrifice. You just--jilt me!"

"You put it very harshly, Drake," she said, with a frown.

"I put it very truly and correctly," he said. "Can you deny it? You cannot! The man who sits here beside you is quite a different man to the one to whom you had plighted your troth. He is the same in bone and body and muscle and sinew, but he doesn't happen to be Lord Angleford's heir.

And so you throw him over. No doubt you are right. It is the way of the world in which you and I have been bred and trained."

"You are very cruel, Drake," she murmured, touching her eyes with a lace handkerchief, too costly and elaborate for anything but ornament.

"I just speak the truth," he said. "I don't blame you. You are bred in the same world as myself. We are both products of this modern fin de siecle. To marry me would be a mistake; you decline to make it. I have only to bow to your decision. I accept your refusal. After this present moment you and I are friends only; not strangers; men and women in our set are never strangers. But I pa.s.s out of your life from this moment.

Go back to the _Seagull_ with Archie and Mrs. Horn-Wallis, and find--as I trust you will--a better man than I am."

She rose rather pale, but perfectly self-possessed.

"I--I am glad you take it so easily, Drake," she said. "You don't blame me, do you? I couldn't run against father, could I? You know how poor we are. I must make a good marriage, and--and----"

"And so it is 'good-by,'" he said.

He looked so stern, so self-contained, that her self-possession forsook her for a moment, and she stood biting softly at her underlip and looking by turns at the ultramarine sea and the stern face of the lover whom she was discarding. He held out his hand again.

"Good-by, Luce," he said. "You have taught me a lesson."

"What--do you mean?" she asked.

He smiled.

"That women care only for rank and gold, and that without them a man cannot hold you. I shall take it to heart Good-by."