Partly because it was the fashion to be coquettish, partly from a feeling of guilt, Juliana had answered in an arch, provocative way that did not captivate Mr Comyn in the least. Bertrand de Saint-Vire would have known just what to say. Mr Comyn, unskilled in the art of flirtation, said that Paris had not improved his Juliana.
They quarrelled, but made it up at once. But it was an ill beginning.
Miss Marling made Mr Comyn known to her new friends, amongst them the Vicomte de Valmé. Mr Comyn, with a lamentable lack of tact, spoke disparagingly of the Vicomte, whom he found insupportable. Truth to tell, the Vicomte, who was well aware of Mr Comyn’s pretensions, was impelled by an innate love of mischief to flirt outrageously with Juliana under the very nose of her stiff and disapproving lover. Juliana, anxious to awake a spark of jealousy in what at that moment seemed to her an unresponsive heart, encouraged him. All she wanted was to be treated to a display of ruthless and possessive manhood. If Mr Comyn, later, had seized her in his arms in a decently romantic fashion there would have been an end to the Vicomte’s flirtation. But Mr Comyn was deeply hurt, and he did not recognise in these signs a perverted expression of his Juliana’s love for him. He was young, and he handled the affair very ill. He was forbearing where he should have been violent, and found fault when he should have made love. Miss Marling determined to teach him a lesson.
It was this laudable resolve that took her to the Hôtel Saint-Vire. Mr Comyn should learn that it was unwise to lecture and criticize Miss Marling. But because under her airs and graces she was really very much in love with him, she induced her cousin to provide him with a card for the ball.
The Vicomte de Valmé was her partner for the first two dances, and when they came to an end he took her off to a convenient alcove, and made intoxicating love to her. He was interrupted in this agreeable task by the sudden appearance of Vidal, who said unamiably: ‘Give me leave, Bertrand: I want a word with Juliana.’
The Vicomte flung up his hands. ‘But I find you quite abominable, Dominique! Always you want words with Juliana! J’y suis, j’y reste. Have you yet slain me this Frederick?’
‘Vidal, did you give Frederick a card for the ball?’ Miss Marling asked anxiously.
‘I gave it to him, but I don’t think he’ll use it.’
‘A la bonne heure! ’ said the irrepressible Vicomte. He laughed impudently up at the Marquis. ‘For what do you wait, mon cher ? You are infinitely de trop.’
‘I await your departure – but not for long,’ said his lordship.
The Vicomte gave an exaggerated start. ‘A threat, Juliana! I scent it unerringly. He will presently shoot me: I am as good as dead, but if you give me the roses you wear at your breast I shall die happy.’
Vidal’s eye gleamed. ‘Will you go as happily through that window?’ he inquired.
‘By no means!’ said the Vicomte promptly. He rose, and kissed Miss Marling’s hand. ‘I surrender to force majeure, dearest Juliana. He has no finesse, our cousin. He will undoubtedly throw me out of the window if I linger.’
‘Well, I don’t think it very brave of you to give way to him,’ said Miss Marling candidly.
‘But, my adored one, observe his size!’ implored the Vicomte. ‘He would be very rough with me, and spoil my so elegant coat. I go, Vidal, I go!’
Miss Marling waved an airy farewell, and turned to her cousin. ‘I find him excessively amusing, you know,’ she confided.
‘I see you do,’ said Vidal. ‘Where is Mary Challoner?’
Miss Marling opened her eyes very wide. ‘Don’t you like him, Vidal? I thought he was a friend of yours.’
‘He is,’ replied the Marquis.
‘Well, it is very odd of you to threaten to throw your friends out of the window, I must say,’ remarked Juliana.
He smiled. ‘Not at all. It is only my friends that I would throw out of the window.’
‘Dear me!’ said Juliana, finding the male sex incomprehensible.
His lordship picked up her fan, a delicate Cabriolet with ivory sticks and guards, pierced and gilt, and rapped her knuckles with it. ‘Attend to me, Ju. Do you mean to have Comyn, or not?’
‘Good gracious, what in the world do you mean?’ exclaimed Juliana.
‘Answer, chit.’
‘You know I do. But I don’t at all understand why –’
‘Then you’d best stop flirting with Bertrand.’
Miss Marling flushed. ‘Oh, I don’t – flirt!’
‘Don’t you?’ jibed his lordship. ‘I beg your pardon. But whatever it is that you do, stop. That’s a kind cousinly warning.’
She tilted her chin. ‘I shall do as I please, thank you, Vidal, and I’ll not be lectured, and scolded by either of you.’
‘Just as you like, Ju. Don’t blame me when you lose your Frederick.’
She looked startled. ‘I shan’t lose him!’
‘You’re a fool, Ju. What’s the game you’re playing? Trying to make him jealous, eh? It won’t work.’
‘How do you know it won’t?’ demanded Miss Marling, stung.
He looked down at her with lazy affection. ‘You’ve chosen the wrong man for these tricks of yours. What is it you want?’
She began to pleat the stiff silk of her gown. ‘I do love him,’ she said. ‘I do, Vidal!’
‘Well?’
‘If only he would – be a little more like you!’ she said in a rush.
‘Good God!’ said the Marquis, amused. ‘Why the devil should he be?’
‘I don’t mean that I want him to be really like you,’ explained Miss Marling. ‘It’s merely that – oh, I can’t tell! But supposing you loved me, Dominic, and I – well, flirted, if you must use that horrid word – with another man: what would you do?’
‘Kill him,’ said the Marquis flippantly.
She shook his arm. ‘You don’t mean it, but I think perhaps you would. Vidal, you’d not let another man steal the lady you loved, would you? Do answer soberly!’
The smile still lingered on his lips, but she saw his teeth shut hard. ‘Soberly, Ju, I would not.’
‘What would you do?’ inquired Miss Marling, momentarily diverted by curiosity.
His lordship was silent for a minute, and the smile faded, leaving his face strangely harsh. A tiny snap sounded under his fingers. He glanced down at them, and the grim look left his face. ‘I’ve spoiled your fan, Ju,’ he said, and gave it her back. Two of the sticks were broken at the shoulder. ‘I’ll give you another.’
Juliana was looking at him in considerable awe. ‘You haven’t answered me,’ she said, with an uncertain laugh.
‘What I might do is – happily for you – not in the least like what Comyn will do,’ he replied.
‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘But can you understand that I wish it were?’
‘My deluded child, one taste of my lamentable temper would send you flying into your Frederick’s arms,’ said the Marquis, and rose. ‘Where’s Mary Challoner?’
‘She wouldn’t come.’
‘Why not?’
‘To say truth, Vidal, I believe she did not desire to meet you.’
‘Fiend seize her!’ said his lordship unemotionally, and went off.
Miss Marling emerged from her alcove to find him gone. When he did not reappear she realised that he had left the ball, and had no difficulty in guessing his present whereabouts.
Nearly an hour later Mr Comyn came up the wide stairway. His arrival was most inopportune, for he came in excellent time to see Miss Marling bestow one of her pink roses on the ecstatic Vicomte de Valmé.
She was standing just outside the ballroom, and she did not immediately perceive Mr Comyn. The Vicomte took the rose reverently, and pressed it to his lips. He then bestowed it carefully inside his coat, and informed Miss Marling that it cause
d his heart to beat more strongly.
Miss Marling laughed at him, and at the same moment caught sight of Mr Comyn. She had never seen so stern an expression on his face, and she was secretly rather frightened. She made the grave mistake of trying to brazen it out, and greeted him with a careless nod. ‘I vow I had quite given you up, sir!’ she said.
‘Yes?’ said Mr Comyn, icily civil. ‘Pray you will spare me five minutes alone, ma’am?’
Juliana gave a little shrug, but she dismissed the Vicomte. She showed Mr Comyn a mutinous face, and said with a coldness that matched his: ‘Well, sir?’
‘It does not seem to me to be well at all, Juliana. You could not bring yourself to forgo one ball to please me.’
‘Pray do not be absurd, Frederick!’ she said sharply. ‘Why should I forgo it?’
‘Merely because I begged you to, ma’am. Had you loved me –’
She was jerking her handkerchief between her fingers. ‘You expect a deal too much of me.’
‘Is it too much, then, to expect that you would prefer an evening spent in my company to one here?’
‘Yes, it is!’ Juliana answered. ‘Why should I prefer to be scolded by you? For that is all you do, Frederick; you know it is!’
‘If my remonstrances seem to you to be in the nature of scolding –’
‘Why must you remonstrate with me? I vow if that is how you mean to treat me when we are married I would rather remain single.’
Mr Comyn grew paler. ‘Tell me in plain words, if you please, do you mean that?’
Juliana turned her face away. ‘Oh, well! I’m sure I don’t want to quarrel with you, only every time you see me you behave in this disagreeable fashion as though I had no right to be at parties but must be forever thinking of you. You think because you are used to life buried in the country I must be as dull as you are, but I have been bred very different, sir, I’ll have you know.’
‘It is unnecessary to tell me that, ma’am, believe me. You have been bred to think of nothing but your pleasure.’
‘Indeed!’ said Miss Marling, with rising colour. ‘Pray do not mince matters, sir! Inform me that I am selfish. I expect no less.’
‘If you think so, ma’am, you have no one but yourself to blame,’ said Mr Comyn, deliberately.
Juliana’s lip trembled. ‘Let me tell you that there are others who do not think so at all!’
‘I am aware,’ bowed Mr Comyn.
‘I suppose you are jealous, and that is the whole truth!’ cried Juliana.
‘And if I am, have I no cause?’
‘If you think I care for someone else I wonder that you don’t try to win me back,’ said Miss Marling, stealing a look at him under her lashes.
‘Then you have very little understanding of my character, ma’am. I do not desire a wife who could give me cause for jealousy.’
‘You need not have one, sir,’ said Miss Marling, her eyes very bright.
There was a short silence. Then Mr Comyn said, holding himself very erect: ‘I take your meaning, ma’am. I hope you will not live to regret this night’s work.’
Juliana gave a defiant laugh. ‘Regret it? Lord, why should I? You need not think you are the only gentleman who has done me the honour to solicit my hand in marriage.’
‘You have played fast and loose with my affections, ma’am. I could laugh at myself for having been so taken in. To be sure, I should have known what to expect from a member of your family.’
By this time each was in a royal rage. Juliana flashed back at him: ‘How dare you sneer at my family? ’Pon rep, it is the greatest piece of impudence ever I heard! Perhaps you are not aware that my family consider you a Nobody?’
Mr Comyn managed to keep his voice very level. ‘You are wrong, ma’am: I am well aware of it. But I was not aware until this moment that you would be guilty of the vulgarity of boasting of your noble connections. Allow me to point out to you that your manners would not be tolerated in my family.’
‘Your horrid family will not be called upon to tolerate me!’ Juliana replied, quivering with anger. ‘I cannot conceive how I could have been fool enough to fancy myself in love with you. Faith, I believe I pitied you, and mistook that for love. When I think what a mésalliance I have escaped, I vow I find myself shuddering!’
‘You should thank God, as I do, ma’am, that you have been saved from an alliance that could only end in the lasting misery of us both. I beg leave to bid you farewell, and I trust, ma’am, that you will be fortunate enough to be solicited in marriage next time by a man who will be blind to the folly and conceit of your nature.’ With which parting shot Mr Comyn executed a low bow, and went downstairs without one backward look.
Rejecting the lackey’s offer to summon a chair, he left the Hôtel Saint-Vire, and strode off down the street in the direction of his own lodging. He had not covered more than half the distance, when all at once he seemed to change his mind, and retraced his steps till he came to a side road. He turned down this, traversed a broad place and arrived presently, and for the second time that evening, at the Hôtel Charbonne.
The lackey who opened the door to him had ushered the Marquis of Vidal out not twenty minutes earlier, and his well-trained countenance betrayed surprise. Upon being asked if Miss Challoner were still up, he said cautiously that he would inquire, and left Mr Comyn (whom he began to suspect of clandestine intentions) to kick his heels in the hall.
Miss Challoner, who had been sitting in a brown study, by the fire, started when the servant came in, and glanced at the clock. The hands pointed to a quarter past midnight.
‘The Englishman who was here first to-night, mademoiselle, is here again,’ announced the lackey severely.
‘Mr Comyn?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Yes, mademoiselle.’
Wondering very much what could have happened to bring him back, Miss Challoner requested the man to admit him. The lackey withdrew, and said later to his colleagues downstairs that the customs of English demoiselles were enough to shock a decent Frenchman.
Meanwhile Mr Frederick Comyn stood once more before Miss Challoner, and said with less than usual precision: ‘I beg pardon, ma’am, to intrude upon you at this hour, but I have a proposal to make to you.’
‘A proposal to make to me?’ repeated Mary.
‘Yes, ma’am. Earlier this evening I informed you that if it lay within my power to serve you I should count myself honoured.’
‘Oh, have you found a way to escape for me?’ Mary said eagerly. ‘Is that what you mean? I would welcome any way!’
‘I am glad to hear you say as much, ma’am, for I fear that what I have to propose to you will take you by surprise, and even, perhaps, be repugnant to you.’ He paused, and she noticed how hard his eyes were. ‘Miss Challoner, in touching upon the extreme delicacy of your situation I do not desire, believe me, to offend you. But your story is known to me; you yourself have divulged as much to me as my Lord Vidal. Your plight is desperate indeed, and while I can readily understand your reluctance to wed his lordship, I am bound to hold with him that nothing save marriage can extricate you from a predicament that must necessarily blacken – though unjustly – your fair name. Madam, I humbly beg to offer you my hand in marriage.’
Miss Challoner, who had listened to this amazing speech with an expression of frank bewilderment on her face, recoiled. ‘Good gracious, sir, have you gone mad?’ she cried.
‘No, ma’am. Mad I have been for the past weeks, but I am now in the fullest possession of my faculties.’
Her suspicion that he had been drinking gave place to a more exact comprehension of the true state of affairs. ‘But, Mr Comyn, you are plighted to Juliana Marling!’ she said.
He replied very bitterly: ‘I am happy to be able to inform you, ma’am, that Miss Marling and I have cut the knot of what each of us
has been brought to regard as our entanglement.’
‘Oh!’ said Mary in distress. ‘Have you quarrelled with Juliana, then? Dear sir, I do not know what has passed between you, but if Juliana is to blame she will be sorry soon enough. Go back to her, Mr Comyn, and you will see that I am right.’
‘You mistake, ma’am,’ he replied curtly. ‘I have not the smallest desire to return to Miss Marling. Pray do not imagine that I am come to you in a fit of pique. I have for a week past realised the unwisdom of our betrothal. Miss Marling’s conduct is not what I wish for in my wife, and her decision to release me from my obligations I can only regard as the greatest favour she has ever bestowed upon me.’
Miss Challoner turned quite pale at this awful pronouncement, and sat weakly down on the couch. ‘But this is dreadful, sir!’ she said. ‘You are speaking in anger, in a way that you will regret when you have had time to reflect.’
‘Madam, I speak not from anger but from infinite relief. Whether you choose to accept of my offer or not my betrothal to Miss Marling is at an end. I shall not conceal from you that I fancied myself to be much in love with her; nor shall I insult your intelligence by pretending an ardour for yourself which I can naturally have had no time to acquire. If you will be content with my respect and deep regard, ma’am, I shall count myself fortunate to have secured the hand of one whose character and conduct command my sincere admiration.’
‘But it is impossible!’ Mary said, still feeling dazed. ‘Surely, surely all cannot be at an end between you and Juliana?’
‘Irrevocably, ma’am!’
‘Oh, I am sorry!’ Mary said pitifully. ‘As for your offer, indeed I thank you, but how should we two wed without love, or even acquaintance?’
He said seriously: ‘At any other time, ma’am, such haste would be strange indeed. But your situation being what it is, you are bound to seek refuge in wedlock with all possible speed. Ma’am, allow me to speak with a plainness you may deem impertinent; I think you, as well as I, come to this marriage with a bruised heart. Forgive me, Miss Challoner, but having watched you I could not but suspect that you are not indifferent to my Lord Vidal. I do not inquire what are the reasons that induce you to refuse his suit; I say only, each of us is disappointed: let us endeavour, together, to heal our separate hurts.’