A Crooked Path Part 61

"No; why should I?"

"Thanks! How heavenly it is to see you again! though you don't look quite as bright as you did at Sandbourne. Is this your carriage? I see you have not started a turn-out of your own yet."

"And never shall, probably."

"Not, at all events, till you have appointed your 'master of the horse.'

Good-by till to-morrow night."

He handed her carefully into the brougham, and stood looking after it as she drove away.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A WANDERER RETURNS.

It was quite an event in Katherine's quiet life to go to a party. She had never been at one in London, and antic.i.p.ated it with interest. Both in Florence and Paris she had mixed in society and greatly enjoyed it.

Now she felt a little curious as to the impression she might make and receive. Her nature was essentially vigorous and healthy, and threw off morbid feelings as certain chemicals repel others inimical to them. She would have enjoyed life intensely but for the perpetually recurring sense of irritation against herself for having forfeited her own self-respect by her hasty action. It would have been somewhat humiliating to have taken charity from the hands of Errington, but this was as nothing to the crushing abas.e.m.e.nt of knowing that she had cheated him. Still, no condition of mind is constant--except with monomaniacs--and Katherine was often carried away from herself and her troubles.

She was glad, on the whole, that De Burgh was to be at Lady Barrington's reception.

She was too genial, too responsive, not to find admiration very acceptable. Nor could she believe that a man like De Burgh, hard, daring, careless, could suffer much or long through his affections. It flattered her woman's vanity, too, that with her he dropped his cynical, mocking tone, and spoke with straightforward earnestness. He might have ended by interesting and flattering her till she loved him--for he had a certain amount of attraction--if her carefully resisted feeling for Errington had not created an antidote to the poison he might have introduced into her life.

Altogether she dressed with something of antic.i.p.ated pleasure, and was not displeased with the result of her toilette.

Her dress was as deeply mourning as it was good taste to wear at an evening party. A few folds of gauzy white lisse softened the edge of her thick black silk corsage, a jet necklet and comb set off her snowy, velvety throat and bright golden brown hair.

"I had no idea you would turn out so effectively!" exclaimed Mrs.

Ormonde, examining her with a critical eye as they took off their wraps in the ladies' cloak-room. "Your dress might have been cut a little lower, dear; with a long throat like yours it is very easy to keep within the bounds of decency. I wonder you do not buy yourself some diamonds; they are so becoming."

"I shall wait for some one to give them to me," returned Katherine, laughing.

"Quite right"--very gravely--"only if I were you I should make haste and decide on the 'some one.'"

"Mrs. Ormonde and Miss Liddell!" shouted the waiters from landing to door, and the next moment Lady Barrington, a large woman in black velvet and a fierce white cap in which glittered an aigret of diamonds, was welcoming them with much cordiality.

"Very happy to see any friend of yours, my dear Miss Liddell! I think I had the pleasure of meeting you, Mrs. Ormonde, at Lord Trevallan's garden-party last June?"

"Oh yes; were _you_ there?" with saucy surprise.

"Algernon," continued Lady Barrington, motioning with her fan to a tall, thin youth. "My nephew, Mrs. Ormonde, Miss Liddell. I think Algernon had the pleasure of meeting you at Rome?" Katherine bowed and smiled. "Take Mrs. Ormonde and Miss Liddell in and find them seats near the piano.

Signor Bandolini and Madam Montebello are good enough to give us some of their charming duets, and are just going to begin. I was afraid you might be late."

So Mrs. Ormonde and Miss Liddell were ushered to places of honor, and the music began.

"I don't see a soul I know," whispered Mrs. Ormonde, presently. "Yet the women are well dressed and look nice enough, but the men are decidedly caddish."

"London is a large place, with room in it for all sorts and conditions of men. But we must not talk, Ada."

Mrs. Ormonde was silent for a while; and then opening her fan to screen her irrepressible desire to communicate her observations, resumed:

"I am sure I saw Captain Darrell in the doorway only for a minute, and he went away. I hope he will come and talk to us. You were gone when he came back from leave--to Monckton, I mean. He is rather amu--" A warning "hush-sh" interrupted her.

"What rude, ill-bred people!" she muttered, under her breath. And soon the duet--a new one, expressly composed to show off the vocal gymnastics of the signore and madame--came to an end; there was a rustle of relief, and every one burst into talk.

"How glad they are it is over!" said Mrs. Ormonde. "Look at that tall girl in pink. You see those sparkles in the roses on her corsage and in her hair; they are all diamonds. I know the white glitter. What airs she gives herself! I suppose she is an heiress, and, I dare say, not half as rich as you are."

"Don't be too sure. I am no millionaire," began Katherine, when she was interrupted by a voice she knew, which said, "I had no idea it was to be such a ghastly concern as this!" and turning, she found De Burgh close behind her.

"What offends you?" she asked, smiling.

"All this trilling and shrieking. There's tea or something going on downstairs. You had better come away before they have a fresh burst; they are carrying up a big fiddle."

"Tea!" exclaimed Mrs. Ormonde. "Oh, do take me away to have some!"

"Here, Darrell," said De Burgh, coolly, turning back to speak to some one who stood behind him. "Here's Mrs. Ormonde dying for deliverance and tea. Come, do your _devoir_."

Darrell hastened forward, smiling, delighted. With a little pucker of the brow and lifting of the eyebrows Mrs. Ormonde accepted his arm.

"Now, Miss Liddell," said De Burgh, offering his; and not sorry to escape from the heated, crowded room, Katherine took it and accompanied him downstairs.

"I did not think you knew Lady Barrington," said Katherine, as he handed her an ice.

"Know her? Never heard of her till you mentioned her name the day before yesterday."

"How did she come to ask you to her house, then?"

"Let me see. Oh, I went down to the club and asked if any one knew Lady Barrington, and who was going to her party. At last Darrell said he was a sort of relation, and that he would ask for a card. He did, and here I am."

"But you said you were coming."

"So I was. I made up my mind to come as soon as you said you were."

"You are very audacious, Mr. De Burgh!" said Katherine, laughing in spite of her intention to be rather distant with him.

"Do you think so? Then I have earned the character cheaply. Are they going to squall and fiddle all night? I thought it might turn into a dance."

"I did not imagine you would condescend to dance."

"Why? I used to like dancing, under certain conditions. Don't fancy I haven't an ear for music, Miss Liddell, because I said the performance upstairs was ghastly. I am very fond of music--real sweet music. I liked _your_ songs, and I should have liked a waltz with you--_im_mensely. You know I never met you in society before--" He stopped abruptly and looked at her from head to foot, with a comprehensive glance so full of the admiration he did not venture to speak that Katherine felt the color mount to her brow and even spread over her white throat, while an odd sense of uneasy distress fluttered her pulses. She only said, indifferently: "I might not prove a good partner. I have never danced much."

"I might give you a lesson in that too, as well as in handling the ribbons. And for that there will be a grand opportunity next week. Lord De Burgh is coming up, and I shall have the run of his stables, which I will take good care shall be well filled. We'll have out a smart pair of cobs, and you shall take them round the Park every morning, till you are fit to give all the other women whips the go-by."

"Do you seriously believe such a scheme possible?"

"It shall be if you say yes. Do you know that you have brought me luck?