Prince Fortunatus Part 31

When he unrolled his pretty gift out of the pink tissue paper, Nina threw up her hands in despair.

"Oh, it is too much of a folly!" she exclaimed. "Why do you do it, Leo?

What is the use of old silver to me?"

"Well, it's nice to look at," said he. "And it will help to furnish your house when you get married, Nina."

"Ah, Leo," said she, "if you would only think about yourself! It is always to-day, to-morrow, with you: never the coming years--"

"Yes, I know all about that," he interposed. "Now I'm going to show you how these are used. They're loving-cups, you know, Nina--"

"Loving-cups?" she repeated, rather timidly.

"Yes? and I will show you how the ceremony is performed. Now, will you get me some lemonade, Nina, and a little of the vermouth that I sent to Mrs. Grey?"

She went and got these things for him; and when she returned he poured into one of the tiny goblets about a teaspoonful of the vermouth, filling it up with the lemonade; then he put the other cup on the top of this one, so that they formed a continuous vessel; he shook the contents; then he separated the cups, leaving about half the liquid in each, and one of them he handed to Nina, retaining the other.

"We drink at the same time, Nina--with any kind of wishes you like."

She glanced towards him--and then shyly lowered her eyes--as she raised the small cup to her lips. What were her wishes? Perhaps he did not care to know; perhaps she would not have cared to tell.

"You see, it is a simple ceremony, Nina," he said, as he put the little goblet on the table again. "But at the same time it is very confidential. I mean, you wouldn't ask everybody to go through it with you--it would hardly, for example, be quite circ.u.mspect for you to ask any young man you didn't know very well--"

"Leo!"

The sound of her voice startled him; there were tears of indignation in it; he looked up and found she had grown suddenly pale.

"You," she said, with quivering lips, "you and I, Leo--we have drunk together out of these--and you think I allow any one else--any one living in the world--to drink out of them after that?--I would rather have them dashed to pieces and thrown into the sea!"

Her vehemence surprised him--and might have set any other person thinking; but he was used to Nina's proud and wayward moods; so he merely went on to tell her that there was nothing, after all, so very solemn in the ceremony of drinking from a loving-cup; and then he asked her whether she ought not to call Miss Girond, for it was about time they were going down to the theatre.

Of course the forthcoming dinner that Mr. Lehmann was about to give at the Star and Garter created quite a stir behind the scenes, where the routine of life is much more monotonous than the people imagine who sit in the stalls and regard the antics of the merry folk on the stage.

There were all kinds of rumors and speculations as to who was going with whom, as to the number and quality of the visitors, and as to the possibility of the manager presenting each of his lady-guests with a little souvenir in honor of the occasion. So when Lionel was summoned to Miss Burgoyne's room one evening, he was not surprised to find her begin to talk of the following Sunday.

"Will you make yourself some tea, Mr. Moore?" she said, from the inner room. "There's some cake on the top of the piano. Then you can bring a chair to the curtain, and I'll talk to you--for I'm not quite finished yet."

He drew a chair to the little opening in the curtain, where he could hear what she had to say, and answer, without any indiscreet prying.

"I am at your service, Miss Grace," said he, lightly.

"How are you going down to Richmond on Sunday?" she asked at once.

"By train, I suppose."

There was a moment's silence--perhaps she was waiting for him to ask a similar question.

"Lord Denysfort is going to drive down," said the voice in the inner room.

"Lord Denysfort!" he said, contemptuously. "What she is the attraction now? I don't like that kind of thing; it gets the theatre a bad name.

If I were Lehmann, I wouldn't have a single stranger allowed in the wings."

"Not unless they were your own friends," said the unseen young lady, complacently. "Now I know you're scowling. But I believe you are quite wrong. Lord Denysfort is simply a business acquaintance of Mr.

Lehmann's--there are money matters between them, and that kind of thing; and when he was asked to be present at the dinner, it was quite natural that he should offer to drive some of us down. You have no particular detestation of lords, have you? What has become of the tall, handsome young man you brought to us at Henley--the lazy man--and didn't he come to the theatre one night?"

"Lord Rockminster?--he is in Scotland still, I believe."

"Somebody ought to put fireworks in his coat-tail pockets; but he's awfully good-looking--he's just frightfully handsome. He quite fluttered me."

"I say, Miss Burgoyne," Lionel interposed, quickly, "there's a sister-in-law of his coming to town shortly, on her way to Brighton--a Miss Cunyngham--and I should like to have her mother and herself come behind for a little while, some night they were at the theatre--it is interesting to those people, you know--"

"You are the one who would have no strangers in the wings!" said the voice.

"And I want you to be civil to them--"

"Tea and cake? All right. But you haven't told me how you are going down to Richmond."

"Yes, I have. I'm going down by train, most likely."

"Oh, by train. I suppose I ought to accept Lord Denysfort's invitation."

"What's the good of driving at this time of year?" he asked. "It will be pitch dark."

"There will be a full moon, they say."

"You won't see it because of the fog. In fact, the whole thing is a mistake. The dinner should have been given in London."

"Oh, I think it will be great fun dining at a half-deserted hotel--it will be ghostly--and I'm going out on the terrace, if it is as black as midnight."

"And what are you going to do with your gallant warrior--with the furious fire-eater who wanted to bring my humble career to a premature end?"

"I don't know who you mean," said the voice, but with no great decision.

"You don't remember saving my life, then?" he asked. "Have you forgotten the duel that was to have been fought before I went to Scotland, and how you stepped in to protect me? If it hadn't been for you, I might have fallen on the gory field of battle--"

"It's all very well for you to mock," said she, "but there's nothing that young man wouldn't do for my sake; and I don't see anything to laugh at in true esteem and affection. They're too rare nowadays. I know one or two gentlemen who might be improved by a little more devotion and--and chivalry. But it's all persiflage nowadays. Everything is _connu_--"

"Behind the scenes, perhaps; but it's different when you import the fresh, the ingenuous element from the outer world," said he (but what interest had he in the discussion?--he did not wear his heart on his sleeve for Miss Burgoyne to peck at). "Aren't you going to take Mr.

Miles down with you?"

"Poor Percy!" said the now m.u.f.fled voice (perhaps she had a pin in her teeth, or perhaps she was still further touching-up her lips), "I suppose he would come if he were invited; but he doesn't know any of them."

"Why don't you ask Lehmann for an invitation for him?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Moore?" demanded the voice--sharply enough now.

"Oh, nothing."

"I consider you are very impertinent. Why should I ask for an invitation for Mr. Miles? What would that imply? Do you suppose I particularly wish him to be there?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to offend," Lionel said, quite humbly. "Only--you see--the other night you showed me that ingenious dodge of covering the ring you wear with a bit of white india-rubber--and--and I thought it might be an engagement ring--worn on that finger--"