Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 79

"Me!" said Una, with open eyes. "Oh, no. Why should he?"

"I didn't know," said Mrs. Davenant, quietly. "He tells you everything, I think."

Una smiled.

"He is very good and kind," she said, still a little absently. "Oh, very kind. No one could have taken more trouble to make me happy."

"Yes, Stephen likes to see you happy," said Mrs. Davenant, softly. "Poor Stephen!" and she sighed.

But Una heard neither the expression of pity nor the sigh. She had risen, and was moving about the room with that suppressed impatience which marks the one who wafts an expected joy.

Presently her quick ears heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and with a throbbing heart she looked at the clock. It wanted ten minutes to the appointed time for Jack's arrival. With a quick flush of grat.i.tude for his punctuality she moved to the door, and stole swiftly and softly to her own room, to regain composure. She heard the carriage pull up and go away to the stables--heard the hurried tread of footsteps in the marble hall--and then, with the faint flush grown into a full-blown blush, went downstairs and entered the drawing-room.

A sudden shock of disappointment chilled her. Stephen was standing before the fire warming his hands, but Jack was not there.

Stephen, in the gla.s.s, saw her enter, saw the sudden start and disappearance of the warm flush, and turned to meet her.

He looked tired, pale and worn, and the smile with which he met her was a singular one, one that would have been almost triumphant but for the expression of anxiety underlying it.

"I have got back, you see," he said. "And are you quite well?"

Una murmured an inaudible response, and he went back to the fire and bent over it, warming his hands, his face grown, if anything, still paler.

"How beautiful she looks!" he thought. "How beautiful! Worth risking all for--all!"

"Won't you go up and dress, Stephen?" said Mrs. Davenant. "There is a large fire in your room, and in Jack's too; I have just been into both of them."

"Yes, yes," he said, not nervously, but with almost an absent air, and he left the room.

"Stephen looks tired," said Mrs. Davenant. "I'm afraid he has had some business that has worried him. I can always tell by his face."

"I am very sorry," said Una, gently. "Yes, he did look tired and worried," she added, but with her eyes on the clock. The hands went round to the hour--an hour beyond Jack's time--and the butler announced dinner.

"Oh, we will wait a little while for Mr. Newcombe!" said Mrs. Davenant, but Una, with a little flush, murmured:

"No, do not, please; Mr. Davenant must want his dinner. Please do not wait;" and Mrs. Davenant, never able to stand out against anyone's will, rose and put her arm in Una's and they went into the dining-room.

Stephen followed and sat down without making any remark on Jack's absence; even when Mrs. Davenant said to the butler--"Let them be sure and keep the soup hot for Mr. Newcombe," Stephen made no observation.

Dish after dish disappeared, and Una made a faint pretence at eating as usual, and joined in the conversation between Stephen and Mrs. Davenant, but her eyes were continually straying toward the clock, her ears straining for the sound of wheels or a galloping horse.

The dinner was a thing of the past, and the soup had been kept hot in vain; no Jack arrived. Gradually silence had fallen on the three, and when Mrs. Davenant rose it was with a sigh of loving sympathy with the troubled heart that ached so near her own.

"I cannot think what has kept him," she said, when they were alone together in the drawing-room. "If it were anyone but Jack I should feel nervous--but even I cannot feel nervous about _him_. It is a plain, easy road from Earl's Court, and he rides like a--a centaur."

"Perhaps," said Una, with her eyes fixed on the fire--"perhaps Lady Bell pressed him to stay to dinner, and he will be here presently."

"That must be it," said Mrs. Davenant, hopefully. "He will come in directly, making a most tremendous noise, and raging against whatever has been keeping him. Jack's rages are dreadful while they last--they don't last long!"

Una smiled, and listened.

Stephen entered--so noiselessly that she almost started--and stooped over his mother.

"There are some things in the breakfast room I brought from London, will you go and see to them?"

Mrs. Davenant rose instantly.

"Una, dear," she said, "see to the tea, I will be back directly."

Una nodded, and sat down at the gypsy table. Stephen stood beside the fire, one white hand stretched out to the blaze, his face turned toward her, his eyes watching her under their lowered lids. His heart beat nervously, the task before him seemed to overmaster him, and he shrank from it; with one hand he felt Jack's letter, lying like an asp in his breast coat pocket.

"There is a cold wind tonight," he said absently. "Jack said the wind had gone round this morning."

"Jack," said Una, raising her eyes, with a sudden flame of color in her face. "Have you seen him? You have been to Earl's Court?"

Stephen frowned as if angry at making a slip.

"No--no," he said with gentle hesitation. "No; I saw him in London. He is not at Earl's Court."

"Not at Earl's Court!" said Una, with surprise. "How is that? Oh, he is not ill?"

And her breath came sharply.

Stephen turned to the fire, with knitted brow and compressed lip, and fidgeted with the poker.

"No," he replied, slowly, and as if uncertain what to say--"he is not ill."

"Then why did he not go?" asked Una.

Stephen remained silent; and still keeping her eyes fixed on his pale face, she rose and glided to his side.

"You have something to tell me," she said, laying her hand on his arm, and speaking in a low, panting voice. "What is it? You will tell me, will you not? Has anything happened to Lady Bell? Is she at Earl's Court?"

"Yes, she is at Earl's Court," he said, almost bitterly, "and she is quite well, I believe."

"Then," said Una, in a low voice, which she tried vainly to keep steady--"then it is something concerning Jack. Oh, why do you keep me in suspense?"

Her misery maddened him.

"I will tell you that he is quite well," he said, almost sharply. "I left him in perfect health. I dined with him, and he made an excellent dinner."

"You are angry with him! What has he done to make you angry?" she asked.

He raised her hand, and let it fall with a gesture of n.o.ble indignation.

"What has he done?" he repeated, as if to himself. "I can find no words to describe it adequately. My poor Una!"

And he turned to her, and laid his hand caressingly and pityingly on her arm.