Burning Sands Part 24

"She's egging me on," he replied, slapping his thigh.

"Now then, now then!" exclaimed Kate, "none o' your sauce."

Muriel put her hand on Lord Barthampton's arm, and turned away. She was feeling an indefinable sense of disgust; and she was glad to merge once more into the revolving ma.s.s of dancers, and to allow the brazen music to beat the thoughts out of her brain. Her partner did not speak. He was turning over in his mind the possibilities of future happiness, and the effort absorbed his attention, so that his dancing, never of a high standard, became atrocious.

The only solution of his perplexing problem was for him to marry a rich wife: then, if Daniel were to reveal the secret of his birth, he would not suffer a knock-out blow. He would lose his t.i.tle and the fortune which went with it, but he would have refeathered his nest, and all would be well. And the partner with whom he was now dancing was an heiress, and a jolly fine girl into the bargain.

He was making praiseworthy efforts to check the downward course of his career, and ever since his interview with his cousin, he had been on the water-waggon; but, even though his reform were complete, was Daniel to be trusted not to dispossess him? He doubted it: the temptation would be too great. What a dirty trick his father had played him! But he wasn't so easily floored: he would obtain another fortune by marriage, and then he could tell Cousin Daniel to go to h.e.l.l.

"You're looking very glum," said Muriel, as they wandered out, presently, into the garden.

Lord Barthampton braced himself. "Yes, I _am_ a bit down in the mouth, little woman," he murmured. "You know, even we soldier fellows get the hump sometimes-sort of lonely."

Muriel glanced at him apprehensively. She saw at once that the moonlight and the lanterns had had an instant effect upon him, and she presumed that he would now become sentimental. Self-pity is the token of a fool, and her feminine intuition told her that, since he was worse than a fool, he would probably picture himself as a stern, silent Englishman of heroic mould bravely battling against a deep and poetic loneliness.

She sighed sweetly, for there was always something of the rogue in her.

"Yes, I understand," she whispered, and she pressed her fingers sympathetically upon his arm.

His line of attack seemed to be justified, and he developed it with ardour. "Sometimes a chap comes to the end of his tether," he went on, but paused again and squared his shoulders. "However, one's got to keep a stiff upper lip, eh? We're out here, far from home, just to do our duty, so we mustn't grouse. We have to keep the old flag flying."

"The dear old flag," said Muriel fervently, feeling rather a beast thus to play up to him, but excusing herself on the grounds of curiosity as to what he would say next.

"Sometimes it's hard, though," he confessed, "and I'm afraid I've been reduced more than once to the whisky bottle and baccarat and bad company. Ah! I know that sounds weak," he exclaimed, as she uttered a little squeak of distress, "but you don't know the temptations of a lonely man, with nothing to do, cursed with wealth...."

"O, but I can guess," she replied, intoning her words as though she were speaking Shakespearian lines. "Sunday afternoons, leaning over the parapet, with nothing to do but spit in the river-why shouldn't you join in a game of chance, instead of going to church? I can quite understand it."

He looked at her in astonishment, wondering if she were pulling his leg; but in the moonlight he saw only a sympathetic girl, gazing into the distance with an expression of saintly purity.

"It's worse than that," he sighed. "A man has temptations that you couldn't understand, little woman. What he wants is the pure friendship of a girl."

"An English girl," she murmured, with fervour.

He bent forward and looked into her eyes. "Lady Muriel," he said, "will you be a friend to me? Will you be my little English rose?"

"Lord Barthampton ..." she began, wondering how she could terminate a jest of which she was already tiring.

He checked her. "Please call me 'Charles,'" he begged.

The music began again in the ballroom, and Muriel rose with alacrity.

"Come," she said, dramatically. "Let us go back to the gay and frivolous world."

"Right-o!" he exclaimed, brightly, inadvertently changing his tone now that the desired impression seemed to have been made.

As they entered the house they encountered Lord Blair, who had looked in at the dance for the purpose of demonstrating the perfect agreement between the diplomatic and the military services, for it so happened that his own policy and that of the General disagreed on every occasion and on every essential point. He was standing in the hall, having just made a parade of the ballroom with his hostess, and the latter was now talking to him, calling him "George" for the benefit of the guests who happened to be within earshot.

As the girl and her partner approached, Lady Smith-Evered whispered that Lord Barthampton seemed very attracted to Muriel; and she repeated her a.s.sertion that he was a very eligible young man.

At this, however, a frown gathered upon Lord Blair's forehead, and he made a deprecating gesture with his thin hand. He had other plans for his daughter which, if not yet mature, were already in train; and, it must be confessed, he wished Barthampton an early and comfortable demise.

Muriel presently wandered off with her chaperone, Lady Smith-Evered; and Lord Blair thereupon suggested that her late partner should come with him into the smoking-room for a quiet cigar. The heavy-jowled young man was inwardly astonished at the mark of consideration, and the thought entered his slow-working mind that Lady Muriel's father was taking an antic.i.p.atory interest in him.

The smoking-room not being open to the ordinary guests, the two men found themselves alone in it; and Lord Blair at once took up his stand, as was his wont, upon the hearthrug, and made his customary pretence of warming a certain part of his anatomy before the empty grate. Lord Barthampton, meanwhile, seated himself upon the arm of a neighbouring chair, and lit the cigar which had been proffered to him.

"I'm afraid I shall never persuade your cousin Daniel to come to these sort of functions," the elder man remarked, after a few casual references had been made to the evening's entertainment.

"No, he's a queer fellow," the other responded, shortly.

"I have the greatest admiration for him," Lord Blair declared. "Tell me, is he not your heir presumptive?" His words indicated only a polite interest.

"Yes," said Barthampton, puffing heavily at his cigar, and shifting his legs. "But, of course, I shall marry soon-when I find the right girl...."

"Of course, of course," Lord Blair replied. "Very right, very proper.

But ..." he paused, "there is no hurry, is there?"

"I'd like to have a son and heir," the other responded. "You see there's a good deal of property involved. Luckily, I need not marry for money: I've got plenty." He was anxious to announce his eligibility.

"Well," said Lord Blair, speaking out of the blacker depths of his scheming mind, "take my advice, my dear fellow, and don't marry yet awhile. 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure,' you know-a very true adage. You have a long life before you ... plenty of time, plenty, to make your choice with care."

"Yes, I'm pretty healthy," he answered; and Lord Blair looked at him critically, hoping that he was mistaken.

"Does the climate agree with you out here?" he asked, hopefully.

"Well, I can't say I exactly enjoyed the summer," Lord Barthampton laughed. "A heavy fellow like me feels the heat."

Lord Blair's spirits rose. "A little tightness, perhaps, at the back of the head, eh?" His thoughts were running on the possibilities of apoplexy.

"No," he answered, "but I'm always in such a devil of a sweat."

"Yes, yes, very natural, I'm sure," Lord Blair murmured. "And a little short of breath sometimes, I dare say?"

The younger man stared at him warily. He was wondering whether the questions were those of a prospective father-in-law; and he decided that it was his policy to show as clean a bill of health as possible.

"Oh, I'm as sound as a bell," he laughed.

Lord Blair's face fell. If apoplexy were unlikely to carry him off, perhaps there was some hope of kidney-trouble: there were ominous pouches under the young man's eyes.

"Some people," he said, "find that they suffer out here from pains in the small of the back-stabbing pains, you know, with a sensation of burning...."

"Do they, now?" the other replied, quite interested. "No, I can't say I ever felt 'em."

Again Lord Blair's hopes were dashed to the ground. He knew, however, that Barthampton was a heavy drinker, and he introduced the subject with manifest interest, and with a disregard of principle which sorely troubled him.

"Doctors sometimes advise abstemiousness out here," he said, "but personally I think a little stimulant is a good thing."

Lord Barthampton warmed to him. "So do I," he replied heartily. "Still, for the present I'm absolutely on the water-waggon."

"Dear, dear!" muttered Lord Blair, fidgetting openly. "Dear me!-dear me!

That's a little drastic, isn't it?-a little unnecessary?"