Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 95

"Would you? So should I if he were going to marry another young lady I know."

"Oh, who is that?" she asked, with admirably feigned innocence and interest.

"Oh, you can't see her just now. No looking-gla.s.s near," he had the audacity to add, but under his breath.

The dinner hour struck, the carriages were setting down the last arrivals, and Lady Angleford was looking round and smilingly awaiting the butler's "Dinner is served, my lady!" when a footman came up to her and said something in a low voice.

The countess went out of the room, and found her maid in the hall.

The woman whispered a few words that caused Lady Angleford to turn pale and stand gazing before her as if she had suddenly seen a ghost.

"Very well," she said.

The maid hurried upstairs, but the countess stood for quite half a minute, still pale, and gazing into vacancy.

Then she went back to the drawing-room, and, with a mechanical smile, pa.s.sed among the guests until she reached Drake, who was talking to the duke and Lord Northgate.

"You want me, countess?" he said, feeling her eyes fixed on him, and he followed her to a clear s.p.a.ce.

"Drake," she said, lifting her eyes to his face pitifully, "Drake, something dreadful has happened--something dreadful. I don't like to tell you, but I must. She is here!"

She whispered the announcement as if it were indeed something dreadful.

Drake looked at her in a mystified fas.h.i.+on.

"She! Who?" he asked.

"Luce!"

He did not start, but his brows came together, and his face grew stern, for the first time since his reconciliation to Nell.

"Luce!" he echoed. "Impossible!"

"Oh, but she is!" she murmured, in despair. "She arrived a quarter of an hour ago."

"But I wrote, telling her," he muttered helplessly.

The countess made a despairing gesture.

"Then she did not get your letter. She sent a telegram this morning, saying that she was able, unexpectedly, to come, but I have not had it.

And if I had received it, there would not have been time to prevent her coming." She glanced at the slim, girlish figure of Nell, where it stood, the center of a group, and almost groaned. "What shall we do?"

At such times a man is indeed helpless, and Drake stood overwhelmed and idealess.

"She says that we are not to wait--that she will come down when she is dressed. She--she----Oh, Drake! she does not know, and she will think that--that you still--that she----"

He nodded.

"I know. But I am thinking of Nell," he said grimly. "Luce must be told.

She--yes, she must go away again. She will, when she knows the truth."

"But--but who is to tell her?" said the poor countess, aghast at the prospect before her.

Drake shook his head.

"Not you, countess. I will tell her."

"You, Drake!"

"Yes--I," he said, biting his lips. "She found little difficulty in telling me, there at Shorne Mills----No, no; I ought not to have said that. But I am anxious to spare Nell, and my anxiety makes me hard. Wait a moment."

He went to the window, and, putting aside the curtains, looked out at the night, seeing nothing; then he came back.

"Put the dinner back for a quarter of an hour, and send word to her and ask her to go into your boudoir. I will wait her there."

"Is there no other way, Drake?" she asked, pitying him from the bottom of her heart.

"There is none," he said frankly. "It is my fault. I ought to have found out her address; but it is no use reproaching oneself. Send to her, countess!"

She left the room, and Drake went back to the duke, talked for a moment or two, then went up to the countess' room and waited. He had to face an ordeal more severe than any other that had hitherto fallen to his not uneventful life; but faced it had to be; and he would have gone through fire and water to save Nell a moment's pain. Besides, Luce was to be considered, though, it must be confessed, he felt little pity for her.

Presently the door opened; but it was Burden who entered. She was looking pale and emaciated, as if she were either very ill, or recovering from illness, and Drake, even at that moment of strain and stress, noticed her pitiable appearance.

"How do you do, Burden?" he said. "I am afraid you have not been well."

Burden curtsied, and looked up at him with hollow eyes.

"Thank you, my lord," she faltered. "My lady sent me to tell your lords.h.i.+p that she will be here in a minute or two."

She left the room, and Drake leaned against the mantelshelf with his hands in his pockets, his head sunk on his breast; and in a minute or two the door opened again, and Luce glided toward him with outstretched hands.

"Drake! How sweet of you to send for me--to wait!" she murmured.

He took one of her hands and held it, and the coldness of his touch, the expression of his face, startled her.

"Drake! What is the matter?" she asked. "Are--are you not glad to see me? Why do you look at me so strangely? I came the moment I could get away. There has been so much to do; and father"--she paused a moment and shrugged her shoulders--"has been very bad. The excitement and fuss----You know the condition he would be in, under the circ.u.mstances.

I told Burden to wire this morning to say I was coming, but she forgot to do so. She seems half demented, and I am going to get rid of her.

What is the matter, Drake?"

She had moved nearer to him, expecting him to take her in his arms and kiss her; but his coldness, his silence, was telling upon her, and the question broke from her impatiently.

"Haven't you had my letter?" he asked.

"Your letter? No. Did you write? I am sorry! What did you write?"

"I wrote"--he hesitated a moment, but what was the good of trying to "break" the news? "I wrote to tell you of my engagement----"

She started and stared at him.