The Tree of Knowledge Part 67

It was done, as she had learnt that all his graceful little acts were done, with a complete show of unconsciousness; but her grat.i.tude made her answering look radiant with the vivid expression which was to him so irresistible.

Yet, even as she met his kind eyes, she experienced a pang. Why was this man placed out of her reach--this one man whose sympathies were so wonderfully akin to her own? He could interpret her very thoughts; the least thing that jarred upon her seemed to distress him also.

"You were out, when I called," said he, after a few minutes.

She could find nothing more striking in reply than a bare "Yes."

"I saw your brother," he went on, diffidently. "Did he mention our conversation to you?"

"No; that is, nothing particular."

"Ah! I was afraid I had put my foot into it," said Claud, taking up the black lace fan from her knee and playing with it.

"What did you say?" asked the girl, with eager anxiety.

"It was a thankless task--one usually burns one's own fingers by trying to meddle with other people's affairs; but I thought," said the young man, "as I had seen a good deal of Allonby last summer, that I would be doing him a good turn if I let him know the state of affairs?"

"The state of affairs?"

"Yes: with regard to my friend Percivale and Miss Brabourne. You see, she knew nothing and n.o.body when your brother spoke to her last summer.

It was unfortunate ... but it could not be helped ... the long and short of it is, however, that I am afraid she has changed her mind."

Wynifred controlled herself; after all, it was only a definite statement of what she had known must be the case.

"You--told Osmond this?" she faltered.

"I tried to; I daresay I bungled; anyhow he took it in very bad part.

Said it was a pity for outsiders to meddle in these things, especially when they were so imperfectly informed."

"Oh!"

"I daresay it was entirely my fault; but I thought, in case he had been abusing me, that I must justify myself with you.... I mean, I want you to believe that my motive was kind."

"I do believe it."

How thankful she felt that the room was full of people! Had they been alone she must have broken down. As it was, he must see that her eyes were full of tears; and, had her life depended upon it, she could not have helped answering his tender gaze of sympathy with such a look as she had never given him before. It was a look of utter, defenceless weakness--a look of girlish helplessness--it sent his heart knocking wildly against his side. He drew his breath in sharply, through his set teeth. Had there been no audience he would have tried his fate there and then.

Surely it was the subdued woman's heart that appealed to him from those pathetic eyes. Ah, would she only overlook his inadequacy, his short-comings, and let him be to her what an inner consciousness told him that he alone could! He sat gazing at her, oblivious for the moment of his surroundings; she scattered his dream by a hurried question--the eloquent silence was more than she could bear.

"Forgive my asking,--but--is anything decided yet?"

"I think you have every right to know as much as I do of the matter.

Percivale proposed to her last night, and was accepted. Of course, nothing can be announced until the Misses Willoughby sanction the engagement. He has written this afternoon; but I cannot imagine that any difficulty will be made on their part; he is so altogether unexceptionable."

As he spoke, a door opposite them opened, and Elsa appeared in the doorway. She was smiling--her soft dreamy smile--and her hands were full of flowers. Her lover was just behind her, his face aglow with happiness and satisfaction. They came in together; a sudden shade dropped over Elsa's face as her eyes met those of Wynifred. A slight color rose to her cheeks, and she hesitated.

Wynifred rose, went forward, shook hands, and inquired after the Misses Willoughby in a perfectly natural manner; but she failed to rea.s.sure the girl, who answered hurriedly, with a look of guilty consciousness, and escaped as soon as she possibly could to the other side of the room.

"It is very natural," said Wyn, with a sad little smile to Claud, "that she should be shy of me; but she need not. I do not blame her in the least; if anyone is to blame in the matter it is poor Osmond. I fancy he is likely to suffer pretty severely for his imprudence."

"Miss Allonby," said Lady Mabel, approaching with the young man she had been talking to, "I want to introduce you to a most interesting person to take you down to dinner. He is an esoteric Buddhist--so earnest and devoted, as well as intensely enlightened. Mr. Kleber--Miss Allonby."

CHAPTER XLIII.

No man ever lived and loved, that longed not, Once, and only once, and for one only,-- Ah, the prize!--to give his love a language.

_One Word More._

At an earlier period in her career, the esoteric Buddhist would have amused Wynifred beyond measure. She would have regarded him as material for a sketch of character, and drawn him out with such intent; but she was past this, to-night.

She had burst all barriers--all care for her professional career was gone; she recked nothing of whether she ever again wrote a line, or not; everything which made up the sum of her daily existence was forgotten, or if remembered seemed poor, trivial, unimportant, beside the present fact of Claud sitting at the foot of the table, with the spiritualist poetess on his right and a lady politician on his left, each talking across him without intermission, as it seemed, and sometimes evidently amusing him, for he smiled a pre-occupied smile from time to time. But ever his eyelids were lifted to where sat the pale girl in black separated from him as far as circ.u.mstances permitted, eclipsed and blotted out by the vivid color of the young actress who sat near her, and by the regal beauty of Elsa opposite.

Usually, Wynifred easily held her own among women with twice her charms, by the spell of her conversation; but to-night she was silent--abstracted--trying to give her best attention to her neighbor, but with ears stretched to catch the accents of the low, hearty Irish voice at the end of the table. Lady Mabel, who had heard something of the girl's brilliancy, was quite cast down. Wyn absolutely declined the _role_ of Auth.o.r.ess to-night, and was almost stupid in some of her answers, avowing that she did not believe in the astral fluid, and getting hopelessly wrecked on the subject of Avatars, which dimly recalled to her mind Browning's poem, "What's become of Waring?"

When the move was made, and the ladies rose from table, it was almost with a pang that she left the room in which Claud remained. She dared not lift her eyes to his, as he stood holding back the door for them to file out, yet the bent, shy head inspired in him a hope unfelt before.

Was consciousness awake at last;--that consciousness which for his own amus.e.m.e.nt he had tried to stir at Edge, and which had annoyed him so greatly by falling to sleep again and declining to be roused? A dream of utter personal happiness enfolded him, and made him a more negligent host than was his wont; and, as Percivale too was aching to be in the drawing-room, the male contingent soon made their appearance, to the delight of the ladies and the chagrin of the professional gentlemen, who most of them found a good deal of wine necessary to support their enormous and continuous brain-efforts.

But no further word with Miss Allonby was possible for Claud.

A sudden suspicion had flashed across the mind of Lady Mabel--dismissed as unlikely, but still leaving just enough weight to make her determine that no unnecessary words should pa.s.s between them. She did not like Wynifred, and she had never imagined for a moment that her brother did, until to-night. Even now she was by no means sure of it; only Claud seemed abstracted and unlike himself. She dexterously kept him employed with first one person, then another, using the same tactics with the girl, until the cruelly short evening was past, and Wynifred had to rise and make her adieux, feeling something as if she had been through a surgical operation--that it was over--and that she was living still.

Never would she visit that house again, she truly vowed, as she dragged her tired limbs upstairs. This was the limit of her endurance. Not any motive, whether of self-interest, or of foolish, worse than foolish infatuation, should drag her there. As she came down Claud stood in the hall at the foot of the staircase, waiting.

"Are you driving home alone, Miss Allonby?"

"Yes; I could not ask Osmond to fetch me from this house, could I? But I am not nervous, thank you."

"But I am, for you. Will you not allow me to come with you?"

Now, if ever, must be the moment of strength--now one last effort of self-command. Let the heart which is bleeding to cry, "Come!" be silenced--let maidenly pride step in. What! allow Claud Cranmer to drive home with you when you are in this mood--when one kind word would draw the weak tears in floods--oh, never, never, never!

"Come with me, Mr. Cranmer? On no account, thank you,"--a chilly manner, a spice of surprise at the offer. "It will break up your sister's party.

Good-night."

At the same moment the drawing-room door above opened quickly, and Lady Mabel's voice was heard.

"Henry! is Mr. Cranmer there? I want him."

"You see," said Wynifred, with a little smile. "Good-night again."

She was gone.

A moment later, and the tears had come--had gushed freely as the rain.

Alone in the London cab, the girl bowed herself together in the extremity of her pain. It was no use to argue or ask herself why; only she felt as if all were over. Had she done right? Was it indeed wise to be so proud? Was it possible that really, after all, he loved her as she loved him? If so, how she must have hurt him by her cold refusal! And yet--yet--the sons of earls do not marry girls in Wynifred's position.

Better a broken heart than humiliation, she cried bitterly. Did not the warning of poor Osmond's hideous delusion loom up darkly before her?