disagreeable to her woman's sense. But at this moment James came torelease her and conduct her to Rushbrook's study, where he would joinher at once. Everything had been arranged as she had wished.
Even a more practical man than Rushbrook might have lingered over thepicture of the tall, graceful figure of Miss Nevil, quietly enthroned ina large armchair by the fire, her scarlet, satin-lined cloak thrown overits back, and her chin resting on her hand. But the millionairewalked directly towards her with his usual frankness of conscious butrestrained power, and she felt, as she always did, perfectly at herease in his presence. Even as she took his outstretched hand, itsstraightforward grasp seemed to endow her with its own confidence.
"You'll excuse my coming here so abruptly," she smiled, "but I wantedto get before Mr. Leyton, who, I believe, wishes to see you on the samebusiness as myself."
"He is here already, and dining with me," said Rushbrook.
"Ah! does he know I am here?" asked the girl, quietly.
"No; as he said you had thought of coming with him and didn't, Ipresumed you didn't care to have him know you had come alone."
"Not exactly that, Mr. Rushbrook," she said, fixing her beautiful eyeson him in bright and trustful confidence, "but I happen to have a fullerknowledge of this business than he has, and yet, as it is not altogethermy own secret, I was not permitted to divulge it to him. Nor would Itell it to you, only I cannot bear that you should think that Ihad anything to do with this wretched inquisition into Mr. Somers'sprospects. Knowing as well as you do how perfectly independent I am, youwould think it strange, wouldn't you? But you would think it stillmore surprising when you found out that I and my uncle already know howliberally and generously you had provided for Mr. Somers in the future."
"How I had provided for Mr. Somers in the future?" repeated Mr.Rushbrook, looking at the fire, "eh?"
"Yes," said the young girl, indifferently, "how you were to put him into succeed you in the Water Front Trust, and all that. He told it tome and my uncle at the outset of our acquaintance, confidentially, ofcourse, and I dare say with an honorable delicacy that was like him,but--I suppose now you will think me foolish--all the while I'd ratherhe had not."
"You'd rather he had not," repeated Mr. Rushbrook, slowly.
"Yes," continued Grace, leaning forward with her rounded elbows on herknees, and her slim, arched feet on the fender. "Now you are goingto laugh at me, Mr. Rushbrook, but all this seemed to me to spoil anyspontaneous feeling I might have towards him, and limit my independencein a thing that should be a matter of free will alone. It seemed toomuch like a business proposition! There, my kind friend!" she added,looking up and trying to read his face with a half girlish pout,followed, however, by a maturer sigh, "I'm bothering you with a woman'sfoolishness instead of talking business. And"--another sigh--"I supposeit IS business for my uncle, who has, it seems, bought into this Truston these possible contingencies, has, perhaps, been asking questionsof Mr. Leyton. But I don't want you to think that I approve of them, oradvise your answering them. But you are not listening."
"I had forgotten something," said Rushbrook, with an odd preoccupation."Excuse me a moment--I will return at once."
He left the room quite as abstractedly, and when he reached the passage,he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as he walkeddeliberately to the end window, where, with his arms folded behind hisback, he remained looking out into the street. A passer-by, glancingup, might have said he had seen the pale, stern ghost of Mr. Rushbrook,framed like a stony portrait in the window. But he presently turnedaway, and re-entered the room, going up to Grace, who was still sittingby the fire, in his usual strong and direct fashion.
"Well! Now let me see what you want. I think this would do."
He took a seat at his open desk, and rapidly wrote a few lines.
"There," he continued, "when you write to your uncle, inclose that."
Grace took it, and read:--
DEAR MISS NEVIL,--Pray assure your uncle from me that I am quiteready to guarantee, in any form that he may require, the undertakingrepresented to him by Mr. John Somers. Yours very truly,
ROBERT RUSHBROOK.
A quick flush mounted to the young girl's cheeks. "But this is aSECURITY, Mr. Rushbrook," she said proudly, handing him back the paper,"and my uncle does not require that. Nor shall I insult him or you bysending it."
"It is BUSINESS, Miss Nevil," said Rushbrook, gravely. He stopped, andfixed his eyes upon her animated face and sparkling eyes. "You can sendit to him or not, as you like. But"--a rare smile came to his handsomemouth--"as this is a letter to YOU, you must not insult ME by notaccepting it."
Replying to his smile rather than the words that accompanied it, MissNevil smiled, too. Nevertheless, she was uneasy and disturbed. Theinterview, whatever she might have vaguely expected from it, hadresolved itself simply into a business indorsement of her lover, whichshe had not sought, and which gave her no satisfaction. Yet there wasthe same potent and indefinably protecting presence before her which shehad sought, but whose omniscience and whose help she seemed to have lostthe spell and courage to put to the test. He relieved her in his abruptbut not unkindly fashion. "Well, when is it to be?"
"It?"
"Your marriage."
"Oh, not for some time. There's no hurry."
It might have struck the practical Mr. Rushbrook that, even consideredas a desirable business affair, the prospective completion ofthis contract provoked neither frank satisfaction nor conventionaldissimulation on the part of the young lady, for he regarded her calmbut slightly wearied expression fixedly. But he only said: "Then I shallsay nothing of this interview to Mr. Leyton?"
"As you please. It really matters little. Indeed, I suppose I was ratherfoolish in coming at all, and wasting your valuable time for nothing."
She had risen, as if taking his last question in the significance of aparting suggestion, and was straightening her tall figure, preparatoryto putting on her cloak. As she reached it, he stepped forward, andlifted it from the chair to assist her. The act was so unprecedented, asMr. Rushbrook never indulged in those minor masculine courtesies, thatshe was momentarily as confused as a younger girl at the gallantry of ayounger man. In their previous friendship he had seldom drawn near herexcept to shake her hand--a circumstance that had always recurred to herwhen his free and familiar life had been the subject of gossip. But shenow had a more frightened consciousness that her nerves were strangelyresponding to his powerful propinquity, and she involuntarily contractedher pretty shoulders as he gently laid the cloak upon them. Yet evenwhen the act was completed, she had a superstitious instinct that thesignificance of this rare courtesy was that it was final, and thathe had helped her to interpose something that shut him out from herforever.
She was turning away with a heightened color, when the sound of light,hurried footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress was heard in thehall. A swift recollection of her companion's infelicitous reputationnow returned to her, and Grace Nevil, with a slight stiffening of herwhole frame, became coldly herself again. Mr. Rushbrook betrayed neithersurprise nor agitation. Begging her to wait a moment until he couldarrange for her to pass to her carriage unnoticed, he left the room.
Yet it seemed that the cause of the disturbance was unsuspected by Mr.Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton, although left to the consolation of cigars andliquors in the blue room, had become slightly weary of his companion'sprolonged absence. Satisfied in his mind that Rushbrook had joinedthe gayer party, and that he was even now paying gallant court to theSignora, he became again curious and uneasy. At last the unmistakablesound of whispering voices in the passage got the better of his sense ofcourtesy as a guest, and he rose from his seat, and slightly opened thedoor. As he did so the figures of a man and woman, conversing in earnestwhispers, passed the opening. The man's arm was round the woman'swaist; the woman was--as he had suspected--the one who had stood in thedoorway, the Signora--but--the man was NOT Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton drewback this time in unaffected horror. It was none o
ther than Jack Somers!
Some warning instinct must at that moment have struck the woman, forwith a stifled cry she disengaged herself from Somers's arm, and dashedrapidly down the hall. Somers, evidently unaware of the cause, stoodirresolute for a moment, and then more silently but swiftly disappearedinto a side corridor as if to intercept her. It was the rapid passage ofthe Signora that had attracted the attention of Grace and Rushbrook inthe study, and it was the moment after it that Mr. Rushbrook left.
CHAPTER VI
Vaguely uneasy, and still perplexed with her previous agitation, as Mr.Rushbrook closed the door behind him, Grace, following some feminineinstinct rather than any definite reason, walked to the