The Malefactor Part 39

Her eagerness was almost painful. He did not answer her at once. She caught hold of his wrist and drew him towards her. Her eyes searched his face.

"The Marchioness," he said, "is a very beautiful woman. She does not, however, affect the situation as between you and me."

"If she dared!" Lady Ruth murmured. "Wingrave, won't you try and be friends with me?"

"I will try--certainly," he answered. "You would be surprised, however, if you could realize the effect of a long period of enforced seclusion upon a man of my--"

"Don't!" she shrieked; "stop!"

"My temperament, I was about to say," he concluded. "There was a time when I am afraid I might have been tempted, under such circ.u.mstances as these, to forget that you were no longer free, to forget everything that except we were alone, and that you--are as beautiful as ever you were!"

"Yes!" she murmured, moving imperceptibly a little nearer towards him.

He picked up the check and gave it to her.

"I am no actor," he said, looking at her steadily. "At present, I make no conditions. But--"

She leaned towards him. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips.

"I may make them later," he said. "I reserve my right."

She looked at him for a moment, and dropped her veil.

"Please take me down to my carriage," she asked.

THE INDISCRETION OF THE MARCHIONESS

"I am perfectly certain," Juliet declared, "that we ought not to be here."

"That," Aynesworth remarked, fanning himself lightly with his pocket handkerchief, "may account for the extraordinary sense of pleasure which I am now experiencing. At the same time, I can't see why not."

"I only met you this afternoon--a few hours ago. And here we are, absolutely wedged together on these seats--and my chaperon is dozing half the time."

"Pardon me," Aynesworth objected, "I knew you when you were a child."

"For one day!"

"Nevertheless," Aynesworth persisted, "the fact remains. If you date our acquaintance from this afternoon, I do not. I have never forgotten the little girl in short frocks and long black hair, who showed me where the seagulls built, and told me Cornish fairy stories."

"It was a very long time ago," she remarked.

"Four years," he answered; "for you, perhaps, a long time, because you have changed from a child--into a woman. But for a man approaching middle age--as I am--nothing!"

"That is all very well," she answered, "but I am not sure that we ought to be in the gallery at Covent Garden together, with a chaperon who will sleep!"

"She will wake up," he declared, "with the music."

"And I," she murmured, "will dream. Isn't it lovely?"

He smiled.

"I wonder how it really seems to you," he remarked. "We are breathing an atmosphere hot with gas, and fragrant with orange peel. We are squashed in amongst a crowd of people of a cla.s.s whom I fancy that neither you nor I know much about. And I saw you last in a wilderness! We saw only the yellow sands, and the rocks, and the Atlantic. We heard only the thunder of the sea and the screaming of seagulls. This is very different."

"Wonderfully, wonderfully different," she answered. "I miss it all! Of course I do, and yet one is so much nearer to life here, the real life of men and women. Oh, one cannot compare it. Why should one try? Ah, listen!"

The curtain went up. The music of the orchestra subsided, and the music of the human voice floated through the Opera House--the human voice, vibrant with joy and pa.s.sion and the knowledge which lies behind the veil. Juliet found no time to talk then, no time to think even of her companion. Her young cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright with excitement. She leaned a little forward in her place, she pa.s.sed with all the effortless facility of her ingenuous youth, into the dim world of golden fancies which the story of the opera was slowly unfolding.

Beside her, Mrs. Tresfarwin dozed and blinked and dozed again--and on her left Aynesworth himself, a little affected by the music, still found time to glance continually at his companion, so radiant with life and so fervently intent upon realizing to the full this, the first of its unknown joys. So with cras.h.i.+ng of chords and thunder of melody the act went on. And when it was over, Juliet thought no more of the Cornish sea and the lullaby of the waves. A new music was stirring in her young blood.

They were in the front row of the gallery, and presently she leaned over to gaze down at the panorama below, the women in the boxes and stalls, whose bare shoulders and skillfully coiffured hair flashed with jewels.

Suddenly her hand fell upon Aynesworth's arm.

"Look!" she cried in some excitement, "do you see who that is in the box there--the one almost next to the stage?"

Aynesworth, too, uttered a little exclamation. The lights from beneath were falling full upon the still, cold face of the man who had just taken a vacant chair in one of the boxes.

"Wingrave!" he exclaimed, and glanced at once at his watch.

"Sir Wingrave Seton," she murmured. "Isn't it strange that I should see him here tonight?"

"He comes often," Aynesworth answered. "Music is one of his few weaknesses."

There was a movement in the box, and a woman's head and shoulders appeared from behind the curtain. Juliet gave a little gasp.

"Mr. Aynesworth," she exclaimed, "did you ever see such a beautiful woman? Do tell me who she is!"

"A very great lady in London society," Aynesworth answered. "That is Emily, Marchioness of Westchester."

Juliet's eyes never moved from her until the beautiful neck and shoulders were turned away. She leaned over towards her companion, and she did not again, for some few minutes, face the house.

"She is the loveliest woman I ever saw in my life," Juliet said with a little sigh. "Is she a great friend of Sir Wingrave Seton, Mr.

Aynesworth?"

"He has no friends," Aynesworth answered. "I believe that they are very well acquainted."

"Poor Sir Wingrave!" Juliet murmured softly.

Aynesworth looked at her in some surprise.

"It is odd that you should have recognized him from up here," he remarked thoughtfully. "He has changed so much during the last few years."

Juliet smiled, but she did not explain. She felt that she was obeying Wingrave's wishes.

"I should have recognized him anywhere," she answered simply. "I wonder what they are talking about. She seems so interested, and he looks so bored."

Aynesworth looked at his watch. It was barely ten o'clock.