A Comedy of Masks Part 39

It was a Mr. Oswyn."

A minute later Mary found herself in the ball-room, making heroic efforts to divide her entire attention impartially between the strains of the band and the remarks of her partner.

She was afraid to pa.s.s in review the conduct of those few minutes which had seemed so long. Had it really all occurred in the interval between two waltzes?

For the present she drew a mental curtain over the scene. She lacked the courage to gaze upon her handiwork, although she was not without a hopeful instinct that, when she criticised it in sober daylight, she would even approve of what she had done. Her determination did not, however, carry her further than the middle of the dance.

The room was now crowded to repletion, and she readily fell in with her partner's suggestion that they should take a turn in the cooler atmosphere of the garden; and as she pa.s.sed the threshold, a rapid, retrospective glance informed her that Eve was once more playing her arduous part of hostess.

Never had actress more anxiously awaited the fall of the curtain upon her scene. Her husband, in the gallant russet of a falconer, was dancing now with Mrs. Dollond: she could hear his frequent laughter, and, though she turned her eyes away, see him bending over his partner to catch the words, trivial enough no doubt, which she seemed to whisper with such an air of confidence. But, though she had heard him address Mrs. Dollond by her Christian name, she did not pay him the compliment of being jealous: the time for that had pa.s.sed. The account which she had to demand of him related to a matter far more serious than the most flagrant of flirtations--she only longed to confront him, to tear from him a confession, not so much with a view to humiliate him as to enlighten herself, and to force him to make the only reparation in his power.

When the music had ceased, and the measured tread of feet lapsed into the confusion of independent wanderings, Eve turned to find her husband close behind her, and Mrs. Dollond firing off a neat little speech of congratulation, panting a little, and making play with her elaborate fan.

She was quick to seize the opportunity for which she had waited so eagerly; with a few words of smiling apology to Mrs. Dollond and the others who were gathered round her, she intimated to her husband that she wished him to come with her, to attend to something: she a.s.sumed a playful air of mystery.

"Oh, you must go!" said Mrs. Dollond, "your wife is planning some delightful surprise for us: I can see it in her eyes! Though, what one could want more----"

The music began again, and the couples took their places for the Lancers: there was to be a Shakespearian set, and another of Waverley notabilities.

Under cover of the discussion and confusion which this scheme involved, Eve withdrew, leading the way into the room which they called the library, and which was full of superfluous furniture, removed from the drawing-room to make s.p.a.ce for the dancers. Her husband followed, lifting his eyebrows, with a chivalrous but not wholly successful attempt to disguise his impatience.

When he had closed the door, Eve turned suddenly and confronted him, interrupting the question which was on his lips. He noticed, with a quick apprehension, that she was very pale, that the smile which she had worn for her guests had given place to an expression even more ominous than her pallor and the trembling of her lips.

"Why have I brought you here?" she echoed. "I don't know, I might have asked you before them all--perhaps you would have preferred that! But I won't keep you long. The truth! That is all I want!"

He frowned, with a vicious movement of his lips: then meeting her gaze, made an awkward effort to seem at ease.

"My dear child!" he said, stepping back and leaning his back against the door, "what melodrama! The truth! what truth?"

"How often you must have withheld it from me, to ask like that! The truth about Philip Rainham, and that woman: that is what I ask!"

Lightmark exclaimed petulantly at this:

"Haven't we discussed it all before? Haven't you questioned me beyond all limits? Haven't you said that you believed me? And what a time----"

"Yes, I have asked you before. Is it my fault that you have lied? Is it my fault that you have made it possible for--for someone else to prove to me, to-night, that you have deceived me? The time is not of my making. But now, I must have the truth; it is the only reparation, the last thing I shall ask of you!"

"You must be mad!" he stammered, his self-possession deserting him; "you don't know--you have no right to speak to me like this. You don't understand these things; you must let me judge for you----"

"The only thing I understand clearly is that you have blackened another man's--your friend's--memory. Isn't that enough? Can you deny that you have allowed him to bear your shame? I know now that he was innocent; I insist that you shall tell me the rest!"

"The rest!" he repeated impatiently, shifting his att.i.tude. "I won't submit to this cross-examination! I have explained it all before; I decline to say any more!"

"Then you cling to your lie?"

"Lie? Pray, don't be so sensational; you talk like the heroine of a fifth-rate drama! Who has put such a mad idea into your head? Let me warn you that there are limits to my patience!"

"I will tell you, if you will come with me and deny it to his face--if you will refute his proofs."

"Proofs! You have no right to ask such a thing! I tell you, I have acted for the best. Why should you believe the first comer rather than me?"

"Why? You can ask why!" she interposed.

"Let me beg of you to come back with me to our guests; we shall be missed--people will talk!"

Eve shrugged her shoulders defiantly, ironically.

"You prevaricate; you won't, you can't be candid! There is only one other man who can tell me the truth--you make it necessary, I must go to him."

Lightmark clenched his hand viciously upon the handle of the door.

"I decline to discuss this d.a.m.nable folly any longer; if you won't come with me I shall go alone; I shall say that you are ill--really, I think you must be!"

"Go by all means!" she replied indifferently, "but tell me first, where can I find Mr. Oswyn?"

He paused, gazing at her blankly.

"Oswyn?"

"Yes. The man who is not afraid to denounce you. If you won't enlighten me, if you won't clear your--your friend's memory--it may be at the expense of your own--perhaps he will."

"Oswyn!" he stammered, "Oswyn!"

"His address!" she demanded quickly. "Please understand that for the future I am independent; I will go to him at once! If you won't give me his address, if---- Would you prefer that I should ask my brother for it? That is my alternative!"

Lightmark found something very disconcerting in his wife's steadfast gaze, in the uncompromising calm, the quiet pa.s.sion of her demeanour; his one desire was to put an end to this scene, which oppressed him as a nightmare, before he should entirely lose all power of self-control.

He felt himself almost incapable of thought, unable to weigh the meaning of her words, her threats; the readiness of resource which served him so deftly in little things had deserted him now, as it invariably did in the face of a real emergency.

If he could temporize, he might be able to arrive at something more like a plan of action, to concentrate his efforts in one direction.

He realized that if his wife fulfilled her threat, which was the more alarming in that it was not an angry one, but had every appearance of being backed by deliberate intention--if she appealed to her brother, whose moral principles he estimated more highly than his tact or worldly wisdom--there appeared to be every prospect of an aggravated scandal. For if Charles Sylvester (who was unfortunately among the revellers) declined to furnish his sister with Oswyn's address, was it not certain that she would apply elsewhere? And, after all, might not Oswyn adhere to the silence which he had so long maintained?

He reasoned quickly and indeterminately, vaguely skimming the surface of many ominous probabilities and finding no hopeful resting-place for conjecture, finally allowing a little desperate gesture to escape him.

The music had stopped amid the desultory clapping of hands, and he could hear people pa.s.sing outside on their way into the garden. He turned the handle slowly without opening the door.

"Be reasonable!" he appealed. "There is still time; let us go into the ballroom; let us forget this folly!"

"You may go," she replied contemptuously; "I have no wish to detain you--far from it. But if you leave me without giving me Mr. Oswyn's address I shall ask Charles for it, and if Charles----"

Her husband interrupted her savagely.

"Oh, if you are bent on making a fool of yourself, I suppose I can't prevent you. The man lives at 61, Frith Street. Now you have it. I wash my hands of the whole affair."

He opened the door, and she pa.s.sed out gravely before him, holding her bouquet to her down-turned face; and then they parted tacitly, the husband turning towards the door which led into the garden, the wife making her way into the ball-room, and thence towards the studio.