Afterwards Part 24

As he stood against the wall, unconscious of the curious glances directed towards him, the music ceased, and the dancers came pouring out of the ballroom to seek the fresher air without.

Pa.s.sing him on her partner's arm, Iris suddenly withdrew her hand and turned to greet the late comer.

"Dr. Anstice!" It seemed as though her inward happiness must needs find an outlet, so radiant was the smile with which she greeted him. "You have really come! I thought you had failed us after all."

"No--I was sent for, at the last moment." Something in his strained tone seemed to startle the girl, for her eyes dilated, and with an effort Anstice spoke more lightly. "I couldn't get away, Miss Wayne, but you won't visit my misfortunes on my head, will you? You promised me some dances----"

"One has had to go." She looked down at her card. "I kept the fifth for you, but you may have the next if you like. I did not engage myself for that, thinking"--she paused, then smiled at him frankly--"thinking you might come after all."

Scarcely knowing what he did Anstice made some rejoinder; and then Cheniston, who had turned away for a moment, appeared to observe Anstice for the first time, and giving him a nod said rather curtly:

"Evening, Anstice; you've got here then, after all? Well, Iris, shall we go and get cool after that energetic waltz?"

They drifted out into the hall; and watching them go Anstice told himself again that Cheniston had won the day.

"Shall we sit out, Dr. Anstice?" He thought Iris looked at him rather strangely. "I ... I am rather tired--and hot--but still----"

"Let us sit out by all means, Miss Wayne. Shall we go into the conservatory? It is quite cool there--and quiet."

She agreed at once; and two minutes later he found her a seat in a corner beneath a big overshadowing palm.

Now that she was beside him he felt his self-control failing him. She was so pretty in her white gown with the pearls on her neck and the delicate moonstones dangling in her little ears....

"Dr. Anstice"--it was the girl who broke the silence--"do you know you have treated us very badly of late? You have never been near us for weeks, and our tennis match has not been decided after all!"

"I know I've behaved disgracefully"--his voice shook, and she half regretted her impulsive words--"but--well, I'm not exactly a free agent, Miss Wayne."

"No, I suppose a doctor rarely is," she answered thoughtfully; and he did not correct her misapprehension of his meaning.

"But I don't want you to think me ungrateful for your kindness." So much, at least, he might say. "If I have appeared discourteous, please believe that in my heart I have always fully appreciated your goodness--and that of your father."

She said nothing for a moment, looking down at her satin slippers absently; and he did not attempt to interrupt her reverie.

Then, with rather startling irrelevance, she said slowly:

"Dr. Anstice, have you ever been in Egypt? I know you have travelled a lot, and I thought perhaps----"

"No." Suddenly at this apparently innocent question a foreboding of evil fell on Anstice's soul with a crushing weight. "As you say, I have travelled a good deal; but somehow I have never visited Egypt. Why do you ask?"

"Because----" For yet another moment Iris hesitated, as though uncertain whether or no to proceed. And then, suddenly, she turned to face him with something in her eyes which Anstice could not fathom. "I asked because it is possible I may go to live in Egypt some day."

"I see," said Anstice very quietly. "You mean--Miss Wayne, I won't pretend to misunderstand you--you mean that Cheniston has asked you to marry him, and you have said yes."

Now the rosy colour flooded the girl's face until even her ears were pink; but her grey eyes met his frankly, and when she spoke her voice rang happily.

"You've guessed my secret very quickly," she said, relieved unconsciously by his calm manner and friendly tone. "Yes. Mr. Cheniston asked me to marry him an hour ago, and I agreed. And so, as he wants to be married almost at once, I shall have to prepare myself to live in Egypt, for a time at least."

"I don't think you need dread the prospect," he said, and his voice was creditably steady, though the world seemed to be crashing down in ruins around him. "Egypt must be a wonderfully fascinating country, and nowadays one doesn't look upon it as a land of exile. When do you think you will be going, Miss Wayne?"

"Well, Bruce has to be back in November," she said, "so if we are really to be married first"--again the rosy colour flooded her face--"it doesn't give me much time to get ready."

"No. I suppose I ought to congratulate you." He was beginning to feel he could not bear this torture much longer. "At least--it is Cheniston who is to be congratulated. But you--I can only wish you all possible happiness. I _do_ wish it--from the bottom of my heart."

He held out his hand and she put her slender fingers into it. For just the fraction of a second longer than convention required he held them in his clasp; then he laid her hand down gently on her filmy chiffon knee.

"Miss Wayne"--he spoke rather hoa.r.s.ely--"I wonder if you will think me a bear if I run away after this dance? I would not have missed these few minutes with you for anything the world might offer me; but somehow I am not in tune with gaiety to-night."

She shot a quick glance at his haggard face; and even in the midst of her own happy excitement she felt a vivid impulse of sympathy.

"Dr. Anstice, I'm so sorry." Just for an instant she laid her fingers gently on his arm; and the light touch made him wince. "You said when you came in that you had been detained, and you looked so serious I thought it must have been something dreadful which had kept you. I don't wonder you find all this"--she waved her small white fan comprehensively round--"jars upon you--now."

"Yes," he said, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the opening she gave him, and longing only for the moment when he might say good-bye and leave her adorable, maddening presence. "It jars, as you say--not because it isn't all delightful and inspiring in itself, but because"--suddenly he felt an inexplicably savage desire to hurt her, as a man in pain may seek to wound his tenderest nurse--"because not many miles away from here there's a poor mother weeping, like Rachel, for her child, and refusing to be comforted."

She turned pale, and he felt like a murderer as he watched the light die out of her big grey eyes.

"A child--the child you went to see--it died?"

"Yes. She was just a year old--and their only child."

Now, to his remorse, he saw that she was crying; and instantly the cruel impulse died out of his heart and a wild desire to comfort her took its place.

"Miss Wayne, for G.o.d's sake don't cry! I had no right to tell you--it was brutal, unpardonable of me to cloud your happiness at such a moment as this. I ... I've no excuse to offer--none, at least, that you could understand--but it makes me feel the meanest criminal alive to see you cry!"

No woman could have withstood the genuine remorse in his tone; and Iris dabbed her eyes with a little lacy handkerchief and smiled forgiveness rather tremulously.

"Don't reproach yourself, Dr. Anstice. I ... I think I'm rather foolish to-night. And at any rate"--perhaps after all she had divined the soreness which lay beneath his spoken congratulations--"I'm sure of one thing--you did your best to comfort the poor mother."

"Thank you for that, at least," he said; and then, in a different key: "You won't think me rude if I leave after this?"

"Of course not." Suddenly Iris rose, and Anstice, surprised, followed her example. "Dr. Anstice, if you don't mind I'll ask you to take me back now. I think"--she smiled rather shyly--"I think I must just go and bathe my eyes. I don't want any one to ask inconvenient questions!"

Filled with anger against himself Anstice acquiesced at once; and in the hall they parted, Iris speeding upstairs to her room in search of water and Eau de Cologne with which to repair the ravages his heartless speech had caused.

At the last came a consolatory moment.

"Dr. Anstice." She held out her hand once more. "You are the only person--except my father--who knows what has happened to-night. Somehow I wanted to tell you because"--she coloured faintly, and her eyes dropped for a second--"because I think you and I are--really--friends in spite of everything."

"Thank you, Miss Wayne." His tone was so low she could barely catch the words. "Believe me, I value your friendship above everything else in the world."

He wrung her hand hard; and as she left him with a last fleeting smile he turned and found himself face to face with Bruce Cheniston.

At that moment the hall was empty; and before the other man could speak Anstice said quickly:

"So you've won the day, Cheniston. Well, congratulations--though G.o.d knows I wish with all my heart that you had failed."

"Thanks." Cheniston ignored the latter half of the sentence with a smile Anstice felt to be insolent. "So Miss Wayne told you? I had hoped to be the first to give you the information."