CHAPTER XIII.
Meanwhile, in the tea-room, Betty was daintily sipping her claret-cup,while Aldous stood by her.
"No," said Betty, calmly, looking straight at the lady in the tiara whowas standing by the buffet, "she's not beautiful, and I've torn my dressrunning after her. There's only one beautiful person here to-night!"
Aldous found her a seat, and took one himself beside her, in a cornerout of the press. But he did not answer her remark.
"Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous?" said Betty, persisting, but with alittle flutter of the pulse.
"You mean Miss Boyce?" he said quietly, as he turned to her.
"Of course!" cried Betty, with a sparkle in her charming eyes; "what_is_ it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that shewill just have lived _twice_ as much as the rest of us by the time shecomes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous?"
There was an instant's silence on his part. Then he said in aconstrained voice, looking away from his companion, "I don't _mind_ it,but I am not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk ofher."
"It would be a shame of you to pretend anything," said Betty, fervently,"after all I've told you! I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned outall my rubbish bag of a heart--well, nearly all"--she checked herselfwith a sudden flush--"And you've been as kind to me as any big brothercould be. But you're dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous! You keep yourself toyourself. I don't think it's fair!"
Aldous laughed.
"My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a goodlistener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or"--hehesitated--"the things that have mattered most to me--because, in thefirst place, it doesn't come easy to me--and, in the next, I can't, yousee, discuss my own concerns without discussing other people's."
"Oh, good gracious!" said Betty, "what you must have been thinking aboutme! I declare I'll never tell you anything again!"--and, beating hertiny foot upon the ground, she sat, scarlet, looking down at it.
Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Bettya most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the Court inthe Easter recess, and during the Italian journey. Her total lack ofreserve, or what appeared so, had been first an amazement to him, andthen a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend ofhim--difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever--a womanmust be at the cost of most of the advances. But, after the firstevening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallestdemur, though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions. There wasa tie of cousinship between them, and a considerable difference of age.Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose, and thatgreat friends she and Aldous Raeburn should be--and, in a sense, greatfriends they were.
Aldous was still propitiating her, when Lady Winterbourne came into thetea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and notvery happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be inanimated talk with a young journalist whom Raeburn knew, and did notlook their way.
"Just _one_ thing!" said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly inAldous's ear. "It was all a mistake--wasn't it? Now I know her I feelsure it was. You don't--you don't--really think badly of her?"
Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards thebuffet, when she saw a change in the eyes--a tightening of the lip--asomething keen and hostile in the whole face.
"Perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long!"he said hastily, as though the words escaped him. "Shall we get out ofthis very uncomfortable corner?"
Betty looked where he had looked, and saw a young man greeting Marcellawith a manner so emphatic and intimate, that the journalist hadinstantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile offair curls above a very white and rounded forehead.
"Who is that talking to Miss Boyce?" she asked of Aldous; "I have seenhim, but I can't remember the name."
"That is Mr. Wharton, the member for one of our divisions," saidAldous, as he rose from his chair.
Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As shetoo rose, she said resentfully to Aldous:
"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!"
As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say.
"I did not mean to," he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, sawsomething in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in herthroat.
"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said.
* * * * *
But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, onhis way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm.Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish,good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most importantsolicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons.
"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasantundertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurredto me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you."
He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away.
Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson'smanner was decidedly friendly.
"In a moment," he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in thatfurther room."
He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyondthe tea-room.
Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on.
Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At theapproach of the member for West Brookshire, Lady Winterbourne and herdaughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet.
"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment," he said; then hedropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to thisevening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in fiveminutes?"
Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the timeand Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair.Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye.
"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yetanywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave asthough he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seemto have nothing to do."
"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly.
"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkilythrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazesthis winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she_ripping_ to-night--Betty?"
And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he staredat the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined byAldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side.
"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh."I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down."
At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearsonbehind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain.She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by themanner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourneparty--he approached her.
"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping hishead to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?"
The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; shefollowed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed.
He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he founda seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden fromview by a stand of flowers.
As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come,and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Herheart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, thengave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness.
He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her asshe sat bowered among the scent and
colours of the flowers, he made hera passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen herunder the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme,incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only.His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelingswhich he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any powerto check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he hadregretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voicedropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on thememory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, herstruggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had goneaway into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had aloneenabled him to get through his parliamentary work.
Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room anddress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--hadrevived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have oftenpuzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series ofperplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause,in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at timesto be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour wereengaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered,and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of anumber of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed withher--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, withthe experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with othertroublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes,political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to askany woman to share them.--Then, again, he had seen her--and hisresolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast!
Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed bythem. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, toask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring herbeauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_a man might show his effort and his toil,--from _her_ he might claim asympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman.
Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only hiseyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she hadever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers.
She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reasonnor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman inher thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. Theheart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--thepast could only be silenced by filling the present with movement andwarm life.
Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself andhim! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were verymuch what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with abitterer and more realised content.
"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as Iam. And I feel--"
"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything butnatural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quiteboy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But askyourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!"
Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his.Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of thefigures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convincedand moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filledwith the strangest mixture of passion--and a sort of disillusion--almostcontempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of thathead and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more ofthe _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly.
Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. WasRaeburn still there--in that next room?
"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in theshelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--thehour, the place--if she was not.
She roused herself.
"I can't," she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp,however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. Ishould have much to think over--so much! It might all look quitedifferent to me. You must give me time."
"To-morrow?" he said quietly.
"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and Imust have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write."
"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown.
And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over theface, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautifularms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear;but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on thearm nearest to him.
"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as helet her go.
He met her flashing look with tender humbleness.
"_Marcella_!"
The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill hadpassed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic.
"_Not_ to-morrow," she repeated steadily, though dreading lest sheshould burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly--till I can--" Shecaught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne."