A Comedy of Masks Part 38

"Who is that stately person in the dark figured silk, with a cinque-cento ruff? Isn't it Lady Garnett's niece?"

"Yes, that's Miss Masters," said the Colonel, "and I suppose that's Lady Garnett with her. I don't think I've ever met Lady Garnett, though I've often heard of her. What is her dress--whom is she intended to represent? I don't see how the d.i.c.kens one's expected to know, but you're so clever."

"Oh, she's dressed as--as Lady Garnett! What a lot of people--_real_ people, you know--there are here to-night! Dear me, there's the music again already. I believe I've got to dance this time. I do hope my partner's dress won't clash with mine too awfully. That's the worst of fancy dress b.a.l.l.s; they really ought to be stage-managed by a painter, and the period ought to be limited.

One's never safe. Our dance, Mr. Copal? Number six? Yes, I think it must be! A polka? Then we'll waltz!"

And the Colonel, who was not a dancing man, was left in not unwelcome solitude to reflect somewhat ponderously on the advantages of possessing a nephew and niece young enough, brilliant enough, and rich enough--though that was partly _his_ affair--to cultivate the very pink and perfection of smart society. He regarded d.i.c.k in the light of a profitable investment.

When the young people, so to speak, came to the rescue of the avuncular hulk, it was already beginning to drift into the corner of the harbour devoted to derelicts.

The friends who had developed about his path in such flattering numbers when he came home from India, and retired, with a newly-acquired fortune and a vague halo of military distinction about his person, into the ranks of the half-paid, were beginning to find him rather old and, frankly, a considerable bore; but the timely benevolence which he had extended to his nephew was, it appeared, to have its reward in this world in the shape of a kind of reflected rejuvenescence, a temporary respite from the limbo of (how he hated the word!) fogeydom.

When d.i.c.k married, his uncle was already settling down in a narrow groove among the people of yesterday; now he felt that he had once more established his foothold among the people of to-day.

Presently he noticed that Lady Dulminster had arrived, and he made his way across the room to meet her with a quite youthful bashfulness, cannoning apologetically against Romeos and Marguerites, hoping that she would like his uniform.

There was one person, at least, in the room who made no attempt to a.s.sure herself that she was enjoying the vivid gaiety of these parti-coloured revels.

Mary Masters, when she had time for solitary thought, found that the atmosphere of the charming room was full of mockery. For her, the pa.s.sionate vibrations of the strained, incessant strings seemed to breathe the wild complaint of lost souls; the mult.i.tudinous tread of gliding feet, the lingering sweep of silken skirts, the faint, sweet perfume of exotic flowers, all had a new and strange significance; the effect of an orchestral fugue wearily repeating the expression of a frenzied heartlessness, a great unrest.

The girl was completely unstrung. Since Charles had brought her news, which, after all, had been merely a corroboration, her nerves had played her false; the balance of her mind was thrown out of poise; and the fact that she was there at all seemed only a part of her failing, an additional proof of her moral collapse.

Seated on a low ottoman, in a little recess among the tall palms and tree-ferns, which lined the pa.s.sage leading from the ball-room to the studio, she was startled presently from her reverie by Mrs.

Lightmark, who confronted her, a dainty figure in the pale rose colour and apple-green of one of Watteau's most unpractical shepherdesses.

"Not dancing, Mary!" she protested, smiling a little languidly.

"What does it mean? Why are you sitting in stately solitude with such an evident contempt for our frivolity?"

"Frivolity!" echoed Miss Masters. "I _have_ been dancing, this last waltz, with Lord Overstock. I have sent him to find my fan. I told him exactly where to look, but I suppose he can't discover it. He's not very clever, you know!"

"Poor Lord Overstock! I hope he won't find it just yet and come to turn me out of his seat. I'm _so_ tired of standing, of introducing men whose names I never knew to girls whose names I have forgotten, and of trying to avoid introducing the same people twice over. It's so difficult to recognize people in their powder and patches!"

"Yes," said Mary slowly, with a kind of inward resentment which she could not subdue, although she felt that it was unreasonable, "I almost wonder that you recognised me."

Eve glanced at her, struck by her tone, trying to read her expression in the dim light, a shadow of bewilderment pa.s.sing over her own face and for a moment lowering the brilliancy of her eyes.

Then she smiled again, dismissing her thought with a little laugh which broke off abruptly.

"One so soon forgets!" the other added, with an intention in her voice, an involuntary betrayal which she almost immediately regretted.

"Forgets!"

Eve caught up the word eagerly, almost pa.s.sionately, her voice falling into a lower key.

"Forget! Forgive and forget!" repeated Mary quickly and recklessly, letting her eyes wander from her own clasped hands to Eve's bouquet of delicate, scentless fritillaries, which lay neglected where it had fallen on the floor between their feet. "How easy it sounds!--is perhaps--and yet--I have not so much to forget--or to be forgiven!"

The last words were almost whispered, but for Eve's imagination, poised on tiptoe like a hunted creature blindly listening for the approach of the Pursuer, they were full of suggestion, of denunciation.

She remembered now, with a swiftly banished pang of jealousy, that this girl had loved him.

Her thought sped back to a summer evening nearly a year ago, when it had seemed to her that she had surprised her friend's secret.

"What do you mean, Mary?" she demanded courageously. "What have I to be forgiven? Don't despise me; don't, for Heaven's sake, don't play with me! I am all in the dark! Are you accusing me? Do you think because I say nothing that I have forgotten--that I can forget? Is it something about--him?"

Mary cast a rapid glance at her.

"Are you afraid of his name, then?"

Eve dropped her hands despairingly.

"Ah, you do! You _are_ playing with me! About Philip Rainham, then!

For Heaven's sake speak! Do you know what I only guess--that he was innocent? For G.o.d's sake say it!"

It was Mary's turn to look bewildered, to feel penitent. She began to recognise that there were greater depths in Eve's nature than she had suspected, that her indifference might, after all, prove to have been merely a mask.

"You guess--innocent--don't you know, then?"

"Nothing, nothing! I only suspect--believe! I have been groping alone in the darkness--and yet I _do_ know! He was innocent--he played a part?"

"Yes," said Mary gently; "he sacrificed himself, for another!"

"He sacrificed himself--for me. Ah, say it! say it!"

Mary was greatly puzzled and at the same time moved--filled with a supreme compa.s.sion for this woman who was yet such a child, so dainty and frail a thing to confront the deadly knowledge that she had made a shipwreck of a life, of lives.

And yet, was there not also a ring of exultation, a challenge in her last words?

At least, her sorrow was enn.o.bled. She was invested with a sombre glory, as one who had inspired a rare and perfect devotion.

And, after all, had she not already been considered enough?

A silence ensued, during which Eve seemed to be wrapped in steadfast thought.

She grew calmer, picking up her bouquet, and sedulously arranging its disordered foliage; while Lord Overstock, who had arrived with Mary's fan, poured forth elaborate apologies, protesting that she must give him another dance--the second extra--to make up for the time he had lost.

Already the music was beginning for the next dance, and people pa.s.sed in couples, laughing and talking gaily, a motley procession, on their way into the ball-room.

"I thought your brother would have told you," said Mary softly, bending over her programme and gathering her skirts together with a suggestion of departure.

"Charles? He was always prejudiced against him--always his enemy!"

"That is why; he is very just, very conscientious. He told me this afternoon."

Mary's voice sank a little lower. She was standing now. She could see her prospective partner looking for her. She wondered vaguely whether Eve accepted the alternative, whether she realized that, to prove Philip innocent, was to establish her husband's guilt, his original wrong-doing, and subsequent cowardice.

"But--Charles! How did he know? Does he believe it? Who told him?"

Mary had gently disengaged her arm from Eve's restraining hand. She stepped back for an instant, excusing herself to her expectant cavalier.

"One of Philip's friends told him to-day--proved it to him, he says.