April's Lady Part 37

his face has now taken the correct lines of decorous concern. "She is not over fatigued?"

"She looks tired! depressed!" says Lady Baltimore, regarding him seriously. "I wish, Norman, you had come home last evening."

"What! and bring Miss Kavanagh through all that storm!"

"No, you could have left her at Falling. I wish you had come home."

"Why?" with an amused laugh. "Are you afraid I have compromised myself?"

"I was not thinking of you. I am more afraid," with a touch of cold displeasure, "of your having compromised Miss Kavanagh. There are such things as gossips in this curious world. You should have left Joyce in Mrs. Connolly's safe keeping, and come straight back here."

"To be laid up with rheumatism during the whole of the coming winter!

Oh! most unnatural sister, what is it you would have desired of me?"

"You showed her great attention all this summer," says Lady Baltimore.

"I hope I showed a proper attention to all your guests."

"You were very specially attentive to her."

"To Miss Kavanagh, do you mean?" with a puzzled air. "Ah! well, yes.

Perhaps I did give more of my time to her and to Miss Maliphant than to the others."

"Ah! Miss Maliphant! one can understand that," says his sister, with an intonation that is not entirely complimentary.

"Can one? Here is one who can't, at all events. I confess I tried very hard to bring myself to the point there, but I failed. Nature was too strong for me. Good girl, you know, but--er--awful!"

"We were not discussing Miss Maliphant, we were talking of Joyce,"

icily.

"Ah, true!" as if just awakening to a delightful fact. "And a far more charming subject for discussion, it must be allowed. Well, and what of Joyce--you call her Joyce?"

"Be human, Norman!" says Lady Baltimore, with a sudden suspicion of fire in her tone. "Forget to pose once in a way. And this time it is important. Let me hear the truth from you. She seems unhappy, uncertain, nervous. I like her. There is something real, genuine, about her. I would gladly think, that----Do you know," she leans towards him, "I have sometimes thought you were in love with her."

"Have you? Do you know, so have I," with a frankness very admirable.

"She is one of the most agreeable girls of my acquaintance. There is something very special about her. I'm not surprised that both you and I fell into a conclusion of that sort."

"Am I to understand by that----?"

"Just one thing. I am too poor to marry."

"With that knowledge in your mind, you should not have acted towards her as you did yesterday. It was a mistake, believe me. You should have come home alone, or else brought her back as your promised wife."

"Ah! what a delightful vista you open up before me, but what an unkind one, too," says Mr. Beauclerk, with a little reproachful uplifting of his hands and brows. "Have you no bowels of compa.s.sion? You know how the charms of domestic life have always attracted me. And to be able to enjoy them with such an admirable companion as Miss Kavanagh! Are you soulless, utterly without mercy, Isabel, that you open up to me a glorious vision such as that merely to taunt and disappoint me?"

"I am neither Joyce nor Miss Maliphant," says Lady Baltimore, with ill-suppressed contempt. "I wish you would try to remember that, Norman; it would spare time and trouble. You speak of Joyce as if she were the woman you love, and yet--would you subject the woman you love to unkind comment? If you cared you would not have treated her as----"

"Ah, if I did care for her," interrupts he.

"Well, don't you?" sternly.

She has risen, and is looking down at him from the full height of her tall, slender figure, that now looks taller than usual.

"Oh, immensely!" declares Mr. Beauclerk, airily. "My dear girl, you can't have studied me not to know that; as I have told you, I think her charming. Quite out of the common--quite."

"That will do," shortly.

"You condemn me," says he, in an aggrieved tone that has got something of amused surprise in it. "Yet you know--you of all others--how poor a devil I am! So poor, that I do not even permit the idea of marriage in my head."

"Perhaps, however, you have permitted it to enter into hers!" says Lady Baltimore.

"Oh, my dear Isabel!" with a light laugh and a protesting glance. "Do you think she would thank you for that suggestion?"

"You should think. You should think," says Lady Baltimore, with some agitation. "She is a very young girl. She has lived entirely in the country. She knows nothing--nothing," throwing out her hand. "She is not awake to all the intriguing, lying, falsity," with a rush of bitter disgust, "that belongs to the bigger world beyond--the terrible world outside her own quiet one here."

"She is quiet here, isn't she?" says Beauclerk, with admirable appreciation. "Pity to take her out of it. Eh? And yet, so far as I can see, that is the cruel task you would impose on me."

"Norman," says his sister, turning suddenly and for the first time directly toward him.

"Well, my dear. What?" throwing one leg negligently over the other. "It really comes to this, doesn't it? That you want me to marry a certain somebody, and that I think I cannot afford to marry her. Then it lies in the proverbial nutsh.e.l.l."

"The man who cannot afford to marry should not afford himself the pleasures of flirtations," says Lady Baltimore, with decision.

"No? Is that your final opinion? Good heavens! Isabel, what a brow! What a terrible glance! If," smiling, "you favor Baltimore with this style of thing whenever you disapprove of his smallest action I don't wonder he jibs so often at the matrimonial collar. You advised me to think just now; think yourself, my good Isabel, now and then, and probably you will find life easier."

He is still smiling delightfully. He flings out this cruel gibe indeed in the most careless manner possible.

"Ah! forget me," says she in a manner as careless as his own. If she has quivered beneath that thrust of his, at all events she has had strength enough to suppress all signs of it. "Think--not of her--I daresay she will outlive it--but of yourself."

"What would you have me do then?" demands he, rising here and confronting her. There is a good deal of venom in his handsome face, but Lady Baltimore braves it.

"I would have you act as an honorable man," says she, in a clear, if icy tone.

"You go pretty far, Isabel, very far, even for a sister," says he presently, his face now white with rage. "A moment ago I gave you some sound advice. I give you more now. Attend to your own affairs, which by all account require looking after, and let mine alone."

He is evidently furious. His sister makes a little gesture towards the door.

"Your taking it like this does not mend matters," she says calmly, "it only makes them, if possible, worse. Leave me!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

"AT SIXES AND SEVENS."

Pol.--"What do you read, my lord?"

Ham.--"Words, words, words."