Beyond The Rocks Part 25

The blindness and madness of love was upon him and held him in complete bondage. The first shock, which her look of the wounded fawn had given him, was over. They had suffered, and made good resolutions, and parted, and now they had met again. And he could not, and would not, think where they might drift to.

To be near her, to look into her eyes, to be conscious of her personality was what he asked at the moment, what he must have. The rest of time was a blank, and meaningless. It is not every man who loves in this way--fortunately for the rest of the world! Many go through life with now and then a different woman merely as an episode, as far as anything but a physical emotion is concerned. Sport, or their own ambitions, fill up their real interests, and no woman could break their hearts.

But Hector was not of these. And this woman had it in her power to make his heaven or h.e.l.l.

They had both pa.s.sed through moments of exalted sentiment, even a little dramatic in their tragedy and renunciation, but circ.u.mstance is stronger always than any highly strung emotion of good or evil. At the end of their good-bye at Madrid their story should have closed, as the stories in books so often do, with the hero and heroine worked up to some wonderful pitch of self-sacrifice and drama. They so seldom tell of the flatness of the afterwards. The impossibility of retaining a balance on this high pinnacle of moral valor, where circ.u.mstance, which is a commonplace and often material thing, decrees that the lights shall not be turned out with the ring-down of the curtain.

Unless death finishes what is apparently the last act, there is always the to-morrow to be reckoned with--out of the story-book. So while exalted--he by his sudden worship of that pure sweetness of soul in Theodora which he had discovered, she by her innocence and desire to do right--they had been able to tune their minds to an idea of a tender good-bye, full of sentiment and vows of abstract devotion, and adherence to duty.

And if he had gone to the ends of the earth that night the exaltation, as a memory, might have continued, and time might have healed their hurts--time and the starvation of absence and separation. But fate had decreed they should meet again, and soon; and all the forces which precipitate matters should be employed for their undoing.

For all else in life Hector was no weakling. He had always been a strong man, physically and morally.

His views were the views of the world. It seemed no great sin to him to love another man's wife. All his friends did the same at one period or another.

It was only when Theodora had awakened him that he had begun even to think of controlling himself.

It was to please her, not because he was really convinced of the right and necessity of their course of action, that he had said good-bye and agreed to worship her in the abstract.

He had been highly moved and elevated by her that night in Paris. And when he wrote the letter his honest intention had been to follow its words.

He did not recognize the fact that without the zeal of blind faith as to the right, human nature must always yield to inclination.

So they sat there and ate their supper, and forgot to-morrow, and were radiantly happy.

As they had gone down the stairs Monica Ellerwood had joined Lady Bracondale in the gallery above.

"Oh! Look, Aunt Milly!" she had said. "Hector is with the American I told you about in Paris. Do you see, going down to supper. Oh, isn't she pretty! and what jewels--look!"

And Lady Bracondale had moved forward in a manner quite foreign to her usual dignity to catch sight of them.

"It is the same woman he talked to at the opera last night," she said.

"She is not an American, but a Mrs. Brown, an Australian millionaire's wife, we were told. She is certainly pretty. Oh--eh--you said Hector was devoted to her in Paris?"

"Why, of course! You can ask Jack."

"I do not think we need worry, though, dear, because I am happy to say Hector shows great signs of wishing to be with Morella."

And with this pleasing thought she had turned the conversation.

"I think we must go back now," said Theodora, after she had finished the last monster strawberry on her plate. "Josiah may be waiting for me."

Oh, she had been so happy! There was that sense vibrating through everything that he loved her, and they were together--but now it must end.

So they made their way up the stairs and back to the ballroom.

Mrs. Devlyn had abandoned Josiah, and he stood once more alone and supremely uncomfortable. A pang of remorse seized Theodora; she wished she had not stayed so long; she would not leave him again for a moment.

He had supped, it appeared, been hurried over it because Mrs. Devlyn wished to return, and was now feeling cross and tired. He was quite ready to leave when Theodora suggested it, and they said good-night to Hector and descended to find their carriage. But in that crowd it was not such an easy matter.

There was a long wait in the hall, where they were joined by the a.s.siduous Marquis and Delaval Stirling. And Hector, from a place on the stairs, had all his feelings of jealous rage aroused again in watching them while he was detained where he was by his hostess.

Meanwhile, Sir Patrick Fitzgerald had gone about telling every one of the beauty of his new-found niece, and had brought his wife to be introduced to her just after Theodora had left.

Since his scapegrace brother was going to make such an advantageous marriage, and this niece had proved a lovely woman, and rich withal, he quite admitted the ties of blood were thicker than water.

Lady Ada was not of like opinion; she had enough relations of her own, and resented his having asked the Browns to Beechleigh for Whitsuntide.

"My party was all made up but for one extra man," she said, "whom I think I have found; and we did not need these people."

XXI

Lord Bracondale arrived at his sister's house in Charles Street about a quarter of an hour before her luncheon guests were due.

Anne rushed down to see him, meeting her husband on the stairs.

"Oh, don't come in yet, Billy, like a darling," she said, "I want to talk to Hector alone."

And the meek and fond Lord Anningford had obediently retired to his smoking-room.

"Well, Hector," she said, when she had greeted him, "and so you are going to the Fitzgeralds' for Whitsuntide, and not to Bracondale, mother tells me this morning. She is in the seventh heaven, taking it for a sign, as you had to manoeuvre so to be asked, that things are coming to a climax between you and Morella."

"Morella? Is she going?" said Hector, absently. He had quite forgotten that fact, so perfectly indifferent was he to her movements, and so completely had his own aims engrossed him.

"Why--dear boy!" Anne gasped. The whole scene, highly colored by repet.i.tion, had been recounted to her. How Morella had told him of her plans, and how he had at once got introduced to Lady Ada, and played his cards so skilfully that the end of the evening produced the invitation.

"Oh yes, of course, I remember she is going," he said, impatiently.

"Anne, you haven't asked that beast Wensleydown to-day, have you?"

"No, dear. What made you think so?"

"I saw you talking to him in the park this morning, and I feared you might have. I shall certainly quarrel with him one of these days."

"You will have an opportunity, then, at Beechleigh, as he will be there.

He is always with the Fitzgeralds," Anne said, and she tried to laugh.

"But don't make a scandal, Hector."

She saw his eyes blaze.

"He is going there, is he?" he said, and then he stared out of the window.

Anne knew nothing of the relationship between Theodora and Sir Patrick.

She never for a moment imagined the humble Browns would be invited to this exceptionally smart party. And yet she was uneasy. Why was Hector going? What plan was in his head? Not Morella, evidently. But she had never believed that would be his attraction.