Burning Sands Part 28

Suddenly he observed that her eyes were full of tears, and at this his heart seemed for a moment to stop beating.

"Muriel," he whispered, but his voice failed him.

She looked round at him, and smiled; and that which was destined to happen happened all in a moment. His arms enfolded her, and, bending down, he kissed her with the pa.s.sion of revelation-fervently, exultantly, joyously.

CHAPTER XVIII-MAN AND WOMAN

On the following morning Daniel received a message from Lord Blair asking him to come into the study, and he presumed that the question of his relations.h.i.+p to Muriel was to be discussed, for in his present state of upheaval he could hardly imagine that there was anything else in the world to talk about. He was deeply troubled in his mind, for he felt that this fever of love which had kept him awake half the night, and which hourly was growing more intense, was a menace to his happiness and to hers. A thousand times he had told himself that their two lives were incompatible, and yet their unity was now to him the vital object of his existence. Nothing else seemed to matter.

Lord Blair received him with a whimsical smile, and waved him to a chair as though formally introducing him to it. "Sit down, my dear Daniel," he said. "I want to know if you can throw any light upon this extraordinary letter which was delivered here this morning, by hand."

He held up a large pink envelope inscribed in green ink, and handed it across the table; and, while Daniel examined it, he sat watching him benevolently, the tips of his thin fingers pressed together.

The doc.u.ment was written in English, and the wandering handwriting was not unlike that of a child. The address upon the envelope was arresting in its simplicity. "His Excel. The Lord's Deputy," it read.

"Frank Lestrange opened it," said Lord Blair; "for he presumed that the 'Lord' referred to was myself and not the Almighty, and that the 'Deputy' indicated a secretary. But the letter itself was an enigma to him, and the enclosure a mystery."

He held up a carefully folded pocket-handkerchief which the envelope had contained, and Daniel glanced at it with sudden recognition.

The doc.u.ment was as follows:

Dear sir we are sorry one a.s.sa.s.snated you yesterday because you came to us and we see you for the brave gentilman and the Egyptian rispect the Chivalry herewith please find and oblige

Your Wishwellers.

"Well?" asked Lord Blair.

Daniel burst out laughing. "Oh, what children they are!" he exclaimed.

"I think that if we all packed up and went home, and sent out half a dozen schoolmasters in our place, the Egyptian question would be solved."

"Why?-what is the meaning of the letter?" asked his lords.h.i.+p.

"I'd much rather not tell you," Daniel replied.

"But I must insist," said Lord Blair. "I must indeed insist."

Daniel felt awkward: the story was so silly. "It was nothing much," he explained. "A wretched boy came here yesterday to kill me, and in taking his revolver away from him I unfortunately broke his wrist. So I made a sling with my handkerchief and took him to the doctor. He was in great pain, poor chap." He paused and reread the letter.

"Go on with the story," said Lord Blair. "'This is very serious, very serious indeed."

"Oh, no, it's not," replied Daniel. "I guessed where he came from and took him home, and had a talk to the whole gang of them. They were all very young and very ardent. But there's nothing more to hear from them now. Poor lads!-I think they were mighty glad the bullet went wide."

"D'you mean to say you bearded them in their den?"

"Yes; luckily I found them a.s.sembled at their dinner."

Lord Blair sat back in his chair and toyed with a paper-knife, while Daniel gave him a few more details of the occurrence. There was a curious expression on his face as he listened, and his dark eyes seemed to be s.h.i.+ning very brightly. When the brief tale was finished, he rose to his feet, and made a flitting expedition to the window; drummed on the pane; and then, coming round in front of his friend, put his hands upon his broad shoulders.

"My dear fellow ..." he said, and hesitated. Then: "Dear me, dear me, Daniel." Suddenly he drew himself up, and, thrusting forward a stiff arm, grasped the other's hand and wrung it shyly but fiercely.

Daniel looked at him in surprise, for he appeared to be battling with some powerful emotion; and, feeling that the situation no longer required his presence, he rose to go.

Lord Blair stopped him. "Wait," he said; "there is another matter about which I want to speak to you."

Daniel guessed what was coming, and waited with impatience for Lord Blair to open the subject. It seemed to him that his relations.h.i.+p to Muriel was the only thing worth discussing. But the Great Man's thoughts were still occupied with the tale which Daniel had unfolded, and for some time he continued to ask questions and to make ejaculatory comments.

At length, however, an awkward silence and some signs of nervousness indicated that the all-important subject was about to be introduced; but Lord Blair, as was his wont, circled round the outskirts of the matter for some time, speaking of his advancing years and of a father's duty to his only child.

Daniel was impatient to get to grips. "I take it," he said, interrupting him, "that you want to ask me what my intentions are in regard to Lady Muriel."

Lord Blair smiled nervously. "Or shall we say," he suggested, "that I want to know what Muriel's intentions are in regard to you. I have noticed the growing intimacy between you, and you will perhaps have observed that I have not discouraged it. But today, it is my duty to tell you, I saw you ... er ... ahem ... I saw you kiss one another good morning."

Lord Blair, having thus delivered himself, sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the younger man.

"Yes, that's so," the latter replied; "and I wish to Heaven you'd tell me what is to be done about it. I am afraid I have got to tell you that I love Muriel." He leant forward and knitted his brows. "I'm sunk," he groaned, running his hand through his hair. "It's no good fighting against it any longer."

Lord Blair drummed his fingers on the table. "Dear me, dear me!" he muttered. "And what does Muriel say about it?"

"I haven't asked her," Daniel replied. "I suppose she believes she cares for me, too; but that's just the trouble: I've been wondering all night whether she knows her own mind. You see we are so totally unsuited to one another."

"What makes you say that?" Lord Blair asked, obviously pained.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I'm a serious-minded sort of fellow, and Muriel seems to enjoy all this Society business which I detest."

"She is young," was the reply.

"And then I'm a comparatively penniless n.o.body, and I've heard her described as one of the most eligible young women in England."

"Tut, tut," Lord Blair e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "It is true that she will inherit whatever I am able to leave; but an alliance between the Lanes and the Blairs does not seem to me to be open to criticism. After all, our respective names have figured side by side in many pages of English history."

Daniel did not wish to pursue this aspect of the matter. He wanted Muriel, but he wished her to be sure of her love before he bound her to him by a formal engagement: this summed up his att.i.tude in a single sentence. He therefore discussed the question along these lines; but it was apparent that he was labouring under great mental and emotional stress. He begged Lord Blair not to influence his daughter in one direction or the other, but to leave the solution of the problem in the hands of Providence.

"I just want her to feel," he explained, "that I am an intimate chum of hers; and then if the thing carries us both off our feet, why we'll come to you and say we want to get married. If not-well, I'm not going to bind her unless it's clear she is as head over ears in love with me as I am now with her."

"You may lose her," said Lord Blair, shaking his head wisely.

"If that is going to be at any time likely," Daniel answered, "I would rather it happened now than after we are married."

When the interview was at an end Lord Blair sat for some time in deep thought. He was somewhat disappointed that Daniel was not more impetuous, and he saw no reason why Muriel should be treated with such careful consideration, lest she should make a mistake and suffer for it later. He regarded his daughter as decidedly flighty, and, since she was his heiress, he wanted to see her married as soon as possible to the man of his choice, a man of strong will who would keep her well in hand: but that, to his surprise, was just what the mighty Daniel seemed disinclined to do.

Lord Blair did not believe in a man pandering to the whims of the woman he loved: his own experience had been too devastating for that. He would have liked to have heard Daniel say to him: "Your daughter wants mastering: I will take her in hand, and turn her into a dutiful wife and a G.o.d-fearing mother of your Blair-Lane grandsons." But instead of this he had said in effect: "Since I shall always want her, if she wants me she can have me when she wants;" and this seemed a poor policy, bordering on self-abnegation.

Muriel's own att.i.tude was interesting. During this and the day following she waited breathlessly for a proposal of marriage, and when none was forthcoming, she decided that she would give him one week and then lose her temper. But the week went by, and nothing happened, except that their intimacy grew and their eyes sought one another more frequently.

His work kept him very busy, but daily he found some moment in which he could be alone with her; and at these times he put his arms about her and looked into her face with such tenderness in his eyes that she could have cried. He seemed to be searching her heart, to be trying to a.s.sure himself of her love; and when he kissed her he appeared to restrain the pa.s.sion which she knew was consuming him.