The Heart of a Woman Part 13

But it did not look as if the engagement was broken off. Not at any rate on this raw November evening, when there was a dense fog outside, but a bright, cheery fire and plenty of light in the little sitting room at the Langham, and Luke sat on the sofa beside Louisa, and plain Louisa--in last autumn's gown--looking at him with her candid, luminous eyes.

"How is Lord Radclyffe?" asked Colonel Harris.

"Badly," replied Luke, "I am afraid. He looks very feeble, and his asthma I know must bother him. He was always worse in foggy weather."

"He ought to go to Algeciras. He always used to."

"I know," a.s.sented Luke dejectedly.

"Can't something be done? Surely, Luke, you haven't lost all your influence with him."

"Every bit, sir. Why, I hardly ever see him."

"Hardly ever see him?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Colonel Harris, and I am afraid that he swore.

"I haven't been to Grosvenor Square for over six weeks. I am only allowed to see him when Philip is out, or by special permission from Philip. I won't go under such conditions."

"How that house must have altered!"

"You wouldn't know it, sir: All the old servants have gone, one after the other; they had rows with Philip and left at a month's notice. I suppose he has no idea how to set about getting new ones--I know I shouldn't! There's only a man and his wife, a sort of charwoman who cleans and cooks, and the man is supposed to look after Uncle Rad; but he doesn't do it, for he is half seas over most of the time."

"Good G.o.d!" murmured Colonel Harris.

"They have shut up all the rooms, except the library where Uncle Rad and Philip have their meals when they are at home. But they lunch and dine at their club mostly."

"What club do they go to? I called in at the Atheneum last night, thinking to find Radclyffe there, but the hall porter told me that he never went there now."

"No. He and Philip have joined some new club in Shaftesbury Avenue--The Veterans' I think it is called."

"Some low, mixed-up kind of place! Old Radclyffe must be out of his senses!"

"He likes it, so he tells me, because people don't come and bother him there."

"I should think not indeed. I wouldn't set foot in such a place."

"He goes there most evenings, and so does Philip--and it's so bad for Uncle Rad to be out late these foggy nights."

"You ought to make an effort and stop it, Luke."

"I have made many efforts, sir. But, as a matter of fact, I had made up my mind to make a final one to-night. Uncle Rad ought to go abroad, and I thought I would try to impress this on Philip. He can't be a bad man."

"Oh! can't he?" was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.

"At any rate, if I have no influence, he has, and he must exert it and get Uncle Rad down to Algeciras or anywhere he likes so long as it is well south."

Luke paused awhile, his face flushed with this expression of determination which must have caused his pride many a bitter pang.

Then he resumed more quietly:

"It's rather humiliating, isn't it, to go to that man as a suppliant?"

"Don't go as a suppliant, my boy. You must insist on your uncle being properly looked after."

Colonel Harris thought all that sort of thing so easy. One always does before one has had a genuine tussle with the unpleasant realities of life; to the good country squire with an a.s.sured position, an a.s.sured income, a.s.sured influence, it seemed very easy indeed to insist. He himself never had to insist; things occurred round him and at his word, as it were, of themselves.

But Louisa, knowing how matters stood, made no suggestion. She knew that Luke would do his best, but that that best was of little avail now; as Philip de Mountford arranged so it would all come about.

Friends and well-wishers could but pray that the intruder was not a bad man, and that he had his uncle's health at heart.

She gave the signal to go, saying simply,

"We mustn't be late for dinner, father, must we?"

And she rose to go, held back by the hand, by Luke's fervent insistence.

He could not accustom himself to part from her, as he often had to do.

It seemed absurd, but undeniable. He was supremely happy in her company, and s.n.a.t.c.hed as much of it as ever he could; but the wrench was always awful and Louisa--subtly comprehensive--was conscious of the terrible pain which she gave him at every parting. She felt the repercussion of it in all her nerves, although her sound common-sense condemned the sensation as unreal.

To-night the feeling was even stronger than it had ever been before.

At her first suggestion that it was time to go, an elusive current pa.s.sed from him to her. He had been holding her hand, and his had been cool and only slightly on the quiver from time to time when her own fingers pressed more markedly against his. But now, all at once it seemed as if a sudden current of lava had penetrated his veins; his hand almost scorched her own, and though visibly it did not move, yet she felt the pulses throbbing and trembling beneath the flesh. The look of misery in his face made her own heart ache though she tried to smile with easy gaiety.

"To-morrow we go to the Temple Show together; don't forget, Luke."

Her words seemed to recall him from another world, and he quickly enough pulled himself together and helped her on with her cloak.

Colonel Harris with the gentle tactfulness peculiar to kind hearts had loudly announced that he would be waiting in the hall.

"Anything the matter, Luke?" she asked as soon as her father had gone from the room.

He contrived to smile and to look unconcerned.

"Not particularly," he replied.

"You seem different to-night, somehow."

"How different?"

"I can't explain. But you are not yourself."

"Myself more than ever. My adoration for you is more uncontrolled--that is all."

She wrapped herself up in her furs, for it was silence that gave the best response. And then he said quite calmly:

"Will you go first. I'll switch off the light."

"Father will be waiting down stairs," she rejoined.

Then she went past him and out through the door, and he had to go back to the mantel-piece where one of the electric light switches was. He turned off the light; the room remained in darkness save where the dying embers of the fire threw a red glow on the sofa where she had sat with him, and the footstool on which her evening shoe had rested.

And the conventional man of the world, schooled from childhood onward to discipline and self-control, fell on both knees against that mute footstool, and leaning forward he pressed his burning lips against the silk cus.h.i.+ons of the sofa, which still bore the impress and the fragrance of her exquisite shoulders.