A Comedy of Masks Part 9

"It is delightful," he said again, when they were once more alone and he had accepted a well-creamed cup and a waferlike _tartine_; "and I feel as if I had turned back several years. But how is it, by-the-bye, that you have not gone to the Dollonds'?"

She laughed up at him merrily.

"Because I have had much more important things to do. I have been with my dressmaker. I am going to a dance to-night, and I have had a great deal of bother over my new frock. But it is all right now, and I shall wear it to-night; and it is perfectly sweet. Oh, you have never seen me at a party yet, Philip."

"Never? My dear child, I have danced with you at scores."

"Oh yes, at children's parties; but never since I have grown up--'come out,' I mean. Oh, Philip, is there anything in life so delightful as one's first ball? I wish you would come out with us sometimes. I should like to dance with you again now."

"Ah," he said, "my dancing days are over. I am a wallflower, Eve, now; and my only use at b.a.l.l.s is to fetch and carry for the chaperons."

"Philip!" she cried reproachfully, "what a dreadful thing to say!

Besides, you used to dance so splendidly."

"Did I?" he asked; "I expect you would be less lenient now. Yes, I will have another cup, please."

She filled it, and he took it from her in silence, wondering how he could least obtrusively gain the knowledge of her mind he sought. He had said to himself that if he could find her alone, it would be so easy; just a word, an accent, would tell him how far she really cared. But now that she was actually with him, it had become strangely difficult. Very sadly he reflected that she had grown out of his knowledge; away from her, she rested in his memory as a child whom he could help. The actual presence of this young girl with the deep eyes, in the first flush of her womanhood, corrected him; an intolerable weight sealed his tongue, forbidding him to utter Lightmark's name, greatly as he desired. He racked himself for delicate circ.u.mlocutions, and it was only at last, by a gigantic effort, when he realized that the afternoon waned, while he wasted an unique occasion in humorous commonplace, that he broke almost brutally into Eve's disquisitions on her various festivities to ask, blus.h.i.+ng like a girl, if Lightmark's picture progressed.

"I have had only a few sittings," she admitted, "and I expect they will be the last here. Perhaps they will be continued abroad. You know Mr. Lightmark is going to meet us in Switzerland, perhaps."

"You will like that?" suggested Rainham gravely.

She looked into her cup, beating a tattoo on the carpet with her little foot nervously.

"Yes," she said, after a minute, "I think so."

There was nothing in her words, her tone, to colour this bare statement of a simple fact. Only a second later, as if in a sudden need of confidence, a resumption of her old childish habit towards him, she raised her eyes to his, and in their clear, gray depths, before they drooped again beneath the long lashes, he read her secret. No words could have told him more plainly that she loved Lightmark--that d.i.c.k had merely to speak. Their silence only lasted a moment; but it seemed to Rainham, who had not s.h.i.+fted his position or moved a muscle, that it stretched over an interminable s.p.a.ce of time. It was curiously intangible, and yet even then he realized that it would remain with its least accessories in his mind one of those trivial, indelible photographs which last a lifetime. The smell of mignonette that spread in from the window-box through the turquoise-blue Venetian blinds; the chattering of the love-birds; the strains of a waltz of Waldteufel's floating up from a German band in the street below--they ran into a single sensation that was like the stab of cold steel. He sat staring blankly at the tattered bookshelves, playing mechanically with his teaspoon; and presently he became aware that the young girl was talking, was telling him the route they should take next week, and the name of the hotel they were going to at Basel.

"Yes," he hazarded, and "Yes," and "Yes," his smiling lips belying the la.s.situde of his eyes. Actually, he looked out and beyond her, at another Eve, to whom he now paid his adieux. It was the dainty little figure of her childish self which he saw, with its bright, long hair, and its confiding eyes, and its caressing little ways, in the deepening shadows between the bookshelves--and for the last time. It vanished like a shadow, smiling mockingly, and he knew it would never return. In its place abode henceforth the image of this stately maiden, comely and desirable, with the profound eyes which lighted up--for d.i.c.k. An unaccountable sense of failure stole over Rainham--unaccountable because he could lay his finger upon no tangible cause of his discomfiture.

CHAPTER XI

The little town was brilliant with September suns.h.i.+ne; the blue smoke spired almost unbroken into the bluer vault above, and the cream-coloured facades of the houses, with their faded blue shutters and verandas, the gay striped awnings of the little fleet of rowing boats, the gray of the stone parapet, and the dull green of the mountainous opposite sh.o.r.e, were mirrored steeply in the bight of narrowing, sunlit lake. The wide, dusty esplanade was almost empty, except at the corners, where voluble market women gossiped over their fruit-baskets, heaped with purple-brown figs, little mountain-born strawberries, sweet, watery grapes, green almonds, and stupendous pears. At rare intervals a steamboat, bright and neat as a new toy, trailed a long feather of smoke from the foot of the Rigi, shed a small and dusty crowd into the sleepy town, and then bustled back, shearing the silken flood and strangely distorting its reflections.

"The worst of Lucerne," said Mrs. Sylvester--"the worst of Lucerne is that one can't escape from Mount Pilatus and the Lion. The inhabitants all think that Pilatus regulates the weather, and they would certainly give their Lion the preference over the Venus of Milo."

They were all sitting on the terrace in front of the Schweitzerhof; Lady Garnett and Mary, Mrs. Sylvester and Eve. Lady Garnett and her companion were but newly arrived, and, as birds of pa.s.sage, preferred the hotel to a _pension_. The Sylvesters had been staying in the quaint, rambling town for nearly a fortnight. It was their usual summer resort, and although the spring of each year found them deciding to go elsewhere for a change, in the end they nearly always proved faithful to the familiar lake. Their _pension_--they regarded it almost as a country house--was such an inducement! The Pension Bungay was maintained by an old servant of the family, who, when he began to find the duties of butler too exacting for his declining years, gave a warning, which applied also to one of his fellow-servants, the cook, to wit, a lady of Continental origin, who had consented to become Madame Bungay; and the pair, having souls above public-houses, and relying on their not inconsiderable connection among the servants of Mayfair, had boldly and successfully launched into an independent career as sole proprietors and managers of the Pension Bungay, Lucerne.

"Yes," said Lady Garnett sympathetically; "I suppose Pilatus _is_ rather monotonous. It's rather too near, I think. It ought to be far away, and covered with snow, more like the Jungfrau, which we have been wors.h.i.+pping at Interlaken, where, by the way, there are positively more Americans than natives."

"Oh," Mrs. Sylvester chimed in, "isn't it dreadful the way they overrun Europe nowadays! There are two American families staying at our _pension_, and you see them everywhere."

"I think I rather like them. They amuse me, you know, and somehow, though it may be disloyal for me, as a naturalized Englishwoman, to say so, as a rule they comport themselves much better than the ordinary British tourist. Of course, the country is not so accessible for the Americans; it's out of the reach of their cheap excursionists. But how opportune that curious tower is, and the bridge! of course, it's correct to admire them?"

Mary Masters and Eve, who had been quietly discussing _chiffons_, got up from their chairs with a preconcerted air.

"We are so tired of sitting still," said the former, balancing herself with an air of indecision, and giving Mrs. Sylvester time to note the admirable taste of her simple, maize-coloured travelling dress, which did not suffer from contrast with the younger girl's brighter and more elaborately charming toilette. "Miss Sylvester wants to show me the uncatchable trout in the lake, and I want to go and see if the salon is empty, so that I can try the piano; and we can't decide which to do. I suppose, Mrs. Sylvester, that the hotel is more within the bounds of propriety?"

"Oh, well," said Eve, laughing, "I don't care; anyhow, let's go and find the piano. Only, there is sure to be some one there already."

"By the way," said Lady Garnett, when the girls had vanished into the building, "of course you know that Philip Rainham's friend--the young man who paints and has a moustache, I mean--is here, or will be very shortly? He was staying at our hotel at Berne."

"Mr. Lightmark, I suppose?" answered the other, without showing her surprise except in her eyes. "We told him that we were coming to Lucerne, and it was more or less arranged."

"Ah, yes," interposed Lady Garnett; "am I indiscreet in suggesting an exceptional attraction?"

Mrs. Sylvester merely looked mysterious, and Lady Garnett was encouraged to continue.

"Your daughter is very beautiful. This Mr. Lightmark has been painting her portrait, _n'est ce pas_? I should think it ought to be a success. Am I to congratulate him?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Sylvester hurriedly, "dear Lady Garnett, it hasn't gone so far as that."

"The portrait?" murmured the other innocently. "Ah, I'm afraid you misunderstood me."

Mrs. Sylvester cast a meaning glance in the direction of Eve, who, sauntering along the terrace with Mary, was now behind their seat, and the conversation, which promised to become interesting, dropped, while Mary explained that they had found the music-stool occupied by a lady, who was superfluously protesting her inability to sing "the old songs"--the person who always _did_ monopolize hotel pianos, as Mary laughingly a.s.serted.

Two days later Lightmark presented himself at the Pension Bungay. He had come to Lucerne with the fixed purpose of definitely proposing marriage to Eve. He was far too worldly-wise to fail to perceive that, so far at least, Mrs. Sylvester had certainly taken no trouble to discourage his pretensions. His attentions, he argued, had been by no means obscure; his studio had been singularly honoured by the presence of Miss Sylvester and her mother, for the purposes of the portrait; he had even been granted a sitting at the house in Park Street, when a less rigid supervision had been exercised, and when, in the absence of the mother, he had been able to a.s.sure himself that the girl was far from despising his adoration. Before leaving town he had dined with his uncle, the Colonel, at his club, and the veteran had spontaneously and strenuously urged the step, and even thrown out promising hints as to settlements. He broke in upon the little circle at the hour of afternoon tea, and Eve found his gray travelling suit, and the bronze of his complexion, exceedingly becoming. He announced that he had come to stay for a week or two; he was going to make some sketches, and he couldn't tear himself away from that delightful bridge, and his lodgings!

"My dear fellow," he said to Charles Sylvester, with an air of familiarity which gave one an insight as to the advance the artist had made in his relations with the family, "you must come and see my diggings. The most delightful old hostelry in Europe. Built straight up out of the lake, like the castle of Chillon. It's called the _Gasthof zum Pfistern_. I could fish out of my bedroom window. I a.s.sure you, it's charming. You must come and dine with me there. I hope you ladies will so far honour me?"

This project, however, fell through, and by way of compensation Lightmark and Charles enjoyed the privilege of entertaining the party, including Lady Garnett and Miss Masters, at Borghoni's; after which the younger people chartered a boat, and floated idly about the star-reflecting lake, while the dowagers maintained a discreet surveillance from their seat on the esplanade.

Of this last incident it may be said that Lightmark and Eve found it altogether delightful, the latter especially being struck by the romance of the situation; while Charles was inclined to be ponderously sentimental, and Miss Masters afterwards confessed to having felt bored.

In the course of the next day Lightmark had the privilege of a confidential interview with the mother of his adored. Mrs. Sylvester had fully armed herself for the occasion, and presented an edifying example of matronly affection and prudence.

"Of course, I was not altogether unprepared for this, Mr. Lightmark.

In fact, I may as well own that I have talked it over with my son, and we agreed that the whole question resolved itself into--ah--into settlements. You must not think me mercenary." This was said with a dignified calm, which made the idea preposterous. "If you can"--here she seemed to refer to some mental note-book--"ah--satisfy Charles on that point, I am sure that it will give me great pleasure to regard you as a prospective son-in-law. Of course, you know, I can't answer for Eve, or Charles."

"Ah, my dear lady," said the other, gracefully overwhelmed, "if I may count on your good offices I am very fortunate."

That evening, as the two men sat discussing their cigars and coffee, Lightmark listened with wonderful patience to a disquisition on the subject of--he couldn't afterwards remember whether it was Strikes or the Sugar Bounty. He was rather afraid of the necessary interview with Charles. It would require some tact, and he was prepared to find him unpleasantly exacting as arbiter of his pecuniary status.

"You ought to be in the House, by Jove! that's your line, Sylvester, with a clever wife, you know, to do the canva.s.sing for you" ("and write your speeches," he mentally added).

The other owned that he had thought of it.

"But the wife," he added, with an attempt at levity, "that's the difficulty!"

And the connection of a subsequent remark with this topic, though some conversation intervened, did not escape his astute companion, and he was careful to sing Miss Masters' praises with an absence of allusiveness, which showed the actor. Then he threw away the stump of his cigar, and mentally braced himself.

"You have seen a good deal of me lately," he said. "I want to ask you if you have any objection to me as a possible brother-in-law; in fact, I want to marry your sister."

"Yes?" said the other encouragingly.