April's Lady Part 20

"Did you forget?" asks Dysart, looking at her.

"Forget?"

"That the last dance was mine?"

"Oh, was it? I'm so sorry. You must forgive me," with a feverish attempt at gayety, "I will try to make amends. You shall have this one instead, no matter to whom it may belong. Come. It is only just begun, I think."

"Never mind," says Dysart, gently. "We won't dance this, I think. It is cool and quiet here, and you are tired."

"Oh, so tired," returns she with a little sudden pathetic cry, so impulsive, so inexpressible that it goes to his heart.

"Joyce! what is it?" says he, quickly. "Here, come and sit down. No, I don't want an answer. It was an absurd question. You have overdone it a little, that is all."

"Yes, that is all!" She sinks heavily into the seat he has pointed out to her, and lets her head fall back against the cus.h.i.+ons. "However, when you come to think of it, that means a great deal," says she, smiling languidly.

"There, don't talk," says he. "What is the good of having a friend if you can't be silent with him when it so pleases you. That," laughing, and arranging the cus.h.i.+ons behind her head, "is one for you and two for myself. I, too, pine for a moment when even the meagre 'yes' and 'no'

will not be required of me."

"Oh, no," shaking her head. "It is all for me and nothing for yourself!"

she pauses, and putting out her hand lays it on his sleeve. "I think, Felix," says she, softly, "you are the kindest man I ever met."

"I told you you felt overdone," says he, laughing as if to hide the sudden emotion that is gleaming in his eyes. He presses the hand resting on his arm very gently, and then replaces it in her lap. To take advantage of any little kindness she may show him now, when it is plain that she is suffering from some mental excitement, grief or anger, or both, would seem base to him.

She has evidently accepted his offer of silence, and lying back in her soft couch stares with unseeing eyes at the bank of flowers before her.

Behind her tall, fragrant shrubs rear themselves, and somewhere behind her, too, a tiny fountain is making musical tinklings. The faint, tender glow of a colored lamp gleams from the branches of a tropical tree close by, and round it pale, downy moths are flitting, the sound of their wings, as every now and then they approach too near the tempting glow and beat them against the j.a.panese shade, mingling with the silvery fall of the scented water.

The atmosphere is warm, drowsy, a little melancholy. It seems to seize upon the two sitting within its seductive influence, and threatens to waft them from day dreams into dreams born of idle slumber. The rustle of a coming skirt, however, a low voice, a voice still lower whispering a reply, recalls them both to the fact that rest, complete and perfect, is impossible under the circ.u.mstances.

A little opening among the tall evergreens upon their right shows them Lord Baltimore once more, but this time not alone. Lady Swansdown is with him.

She is looking rather lovelier than usual, with that soft tinge of red upon her cheeks born of her last waltz, and her lips parted in a happy smile. The subdued lights of the many lamps falling on her satin gown rest there as if in love with its beauty. It is an old shade made new, a yellow that is almost white, and has yet a tinge of green in it. A curious shade, difficult, perhaps, to wear with good effect; but on Lady Swansdown it seems to reign alone as queen of all the toilets in the rooms to-night. She looks, indeed, like a perfect picture stepped down from its canvas, "a thing of beauty," a very vision of delight.

She seems, indeed, to Joyce watching her--Joyce who likes her--that she has grown beyond herself (or rather into her own real self) to-night.

There is a touch of life, of pa.s.sionate joy, of abandonment, of hope that has yet a sting in it, in all her air, that, though not understood of the girl, is still apparent.

The radiant smile that illumines her beautiful face as she glances up at Baltimore--who is bending over her in more lover-like fas.h.i.+on than should be--is still making all her face a lovely fire as she pa.s.ses out of sight down the steps that lead to the lighted gardens--the steps that Joyce had but just now ascended.

The latter is still a little wrapt in wonder and admiration, and some other thought that is akin to trouble, when Dysart breaks in upon her fancies.

"I am sorry about that," says he, bluntly, indicating with a nod of his head the departing shadows of the two who have just pa.s.sed out. There are no fancies about Dysart. Nothing vague.

"Yes; it is a pity," says Joyce, hurriedly.

"More than that, I think."

"Something ought to be done," nervously.

"Yes," flus.h.i.+ng hotly; "I know--I know what you mean"--she had meant nothing--"but it is so difficult to know what to do, and--I am only a cousin."

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't, really," says she, a good deal shocked. "As you say, why should you speak, when----"

"There is Beauclerk," says Dysart, quickly, as if a little angry with somebody, but certainly not with her. "How can he stand by and see it?"

"Perhaps he doesn't see it," says she in a strange tone, her eyes on the marble flooring. It seems to herself that the words are forced from her.

"Because--because he has----"

She brings her hands tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, indeed, to be base herself.

"Perhaps not," says Dysart, drily. In his secret heart this defence of his rival is detestable to him. Something in her whole manner when she came in from the garden had suggested to him the possibility that she had at last found him out. Dysart would have been puzzled to explain how Beauclerk was supposed to be "found out" or for what, but that he was liable to discovery at any moment on some count or counts unknown, was one of his Christian beliefs. "Perhaps not," says he. "And yet I cannot help thinking that a matter so open to all must be patent to him."

"But," anxiously, "is it so open?"

"I leave that to your own judgment," a little warmly. "You," with rather sharp question, "are a friend of Isabel's?"

"Yes, yes," quickly. "You know that. But----"

"But?" sternly.

"I like Lady Swansdown, too," says she, with some determination. "I find it hard to believe that she can--can----"

"Be false to her friend," supplements he. "Have you yet to learn that friends.h.i.+p ends where love begins?"

"You think----?"

"That she is in love with Baltimore."

"And he?"

"Oh!" contemptuously; "who shall gauge the depth of his heart? What can he mean?" he has risen and is now pacing angrily up and down the small s.p.a.ce before her. "He used to be such a good fellow, and now----Is he dead to all sense of honor, of honesty?"

"He is a man," says Joyce, coldly.

"No. I deny that. Not a true man, surely."

"Is there a true man?" says she. "Is there any truth, any honesty to be found in the whole wide world?"

She too has risen now, and is standing with her large dark eyes fixed almost defiantly on his. There is something so strange, so wild, so unlike her usual joyous, happy self in this outburst, in her whole att.i.tude, that Dysart regards her with an astonishment that is largely tinctured with fear.

"I don't know what is in your mind," says he, calmly; "something out of the common has occurred to disturb you so much, I can guess, but,"

looking at her earnestly, "whatever it maybe, I entreat you to beat it under. Conquer it; do not let it conquer you. There must be evil in the world, but never lose sight of the good; that must be there, just as surely. Truth, honor, honesty, are no fables; they are to be found everywhere. If not in this one, then in that. Do not lose faith in them."

"You think me evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest words into a jest, one can see that she is perilously near to tears.

"You mean that I am preaching to you," says he, smiling too. "Well, so I am. What right has a girl like you to disbelieve in anything? Why,"

laughing, "it can't be so very long ago since you believed in fairies, in pixies, and the fierce dragons of our childhood."

"I don't know that I am not a believer in them still," says she. "In the dragons, at all events. Evil seems to rule the world."