Capricious Caroline Part 12

Camilla struck him lightly on the arm with her fan.

"Oh! you tiresome person! You do nothing! You won't play cards ... you can't dance; you! ... What _can_ you do?" With one of her bird-like movements she turned to a man standing beside him. "I know _you_ can dance," she said, "come along."

They slipped away, and Rupert Haverford stood looking after her with his heart beating uncomfortably quickly.

He was conscious of a rush of sharp, resentful anger, and of course he was mortified. Camilla could sting very surely when she liked.

She was laughing and chatting away to the man whom she had annexed so calmly; he was neither young nor handsome, but he made no sort of incongruous figure. He danced as a matter of course, as a habit.

At all times dancing as a social custom was something that startled Rupert Haverford; now, as he saw Camilla held ever so lightly in the arms of another man, he felt choked, hurt, almost outraged.

His face was so stern, so angry that Camilla was satisfied.

"A pity our host is so puritanical," she said to her partner; "he is looking at us now as if he would like to annihilate us both, and all because we are dancing! I love shocking him! He is such a nice old maid."

"A real good sort, though, all the same," answered the man, "one of the best...."

"I begin to hate good people, they are so wet-blankety," Camilla said impatiently. "Isn't this a splendid floor?" she said the next moment.

"I could waltz all night. Tell me when you have had enough."

Mrs. Brenton moved across to where Rupert was standing.

"I love to see Camilla dance," she said, "she is all grace, and she dances with the heart of a child. Indeed, to me she always remains a child.... Sometimes when I see her with her babies I cannot realize that she is their mother, or that she has gone through more dark experiences as Ned Lancing's wife than happily one woman in a hundred is called upon to endure." Mrs. Brenton was silent a moment. Then she turned. "I think I have made things comfortable for Miss Graniger," she said; "she looked so tired, poor child. She is an interesting-looking child. I wonder if she is purely English?"

Rupert Haverford did not answer. He had of course warmly thanked her, but now he scarcely heard her words. He was watching Camilla intently.

Now and then she seemed to circle so closely to him he could have touched her floating draperies; then she was swept away from him swiftly--far, far away. Her small white feet appeared scarcely to touch the ground; to his jealous fancy she leaned too intimately on the arm that embraced her.

Her blue eyes mocked him at one moment, and pleaded the next.

Sometimes she ceased laughing, and then her lips would take the pensive expression that was so pathetic, and which moved him so.

When the music ceased, Camilla came slowly towards them--she was panting a little.

"You must really give a ball, Mr. Haverford," she said; then, restlessly, "Is it time to go, Agnes? I am sure it is. You look as though you were longing to be in your little bi-bi."

They did not go immediately, however, but she kept all the men hovering about her, and adroitly avoided being alone with Haverford for an instant.

"Did I hear you make an a.s.signation for to-morrow with that dear, dull person?" she queried listlessly as Mrs. Brenton and she were swept fleetly homewards in Haverford's electric carriage.

"Yes; he is coming to see me in the morning, or rather to see somebody else." And then Mrs. Brenton explained further.

"I fancy his mother must be a cat," said Camilla, yawning; "they don't seem to meet very often. I am sure I am not surprised, for he is a very dreary person, you know, Agnes, my dear."

"Since when?" Mrs. Brenton spoke with some irritation. "I thought you liked him so much?"

"Oh, I change my mind occasionally!" She yawned again. "The fact is, I do like him sometimes, but then again I dislike him more often. You see, he bores me, and life is much--much too short to be bored...."

Mrs. Brenton sat silent a moment; then she said--

"Camilla, I want to..."

"No," said Camilla, "don't! I know so exactly what you want to say. I know it all by heart. He cares for me; he is _such_ a good man; it will be such a _splendid_ thing for me! Don't you suppose I can hear everybody saying this? Well, of course, it would be a splendid thing. I am not denying that; but oh! Agnes, he depresses me so horribly. When he talks to me I feel as though I were being prepared for confirmation, and he has a way of sitting and looking at me that is positively unbearable. If he only had a spice of the devil in him...."

"Like Sammy, I suppose!" said Agnes Brenton drily.

"Yes"--impatiently--"like Sammy or any other man who lives, and moves, and is not always up in the clouds contemplating the road to Heaven. My dear Agnes, there is no getting away from the fact that Rupert Haverford is a bore, a distinct and definite bore!"

"Well," said Mrs. Brenton, "if that is your opinion of the man, I should not bother about him so much."

"Now you are cross with me," said Camilla, "dear sweet old thing! Don't you know I always speak out my thoughts with you? Oh, here we are at your lodgings already! Look here, Agnes, you must let me help you with this girl. Poor soul! she must feel pretty miserable, I expect. Why not bring her in to luncheon to-morrow?"

Mrs. Brenton kissed the speaker.

"Why will you always try and make me believe you are what you are not?"

she asked, half lightly, half sadly.

"Silly Agnes," said Camilla, laughingly, "it is all your own fault; you are so anxious to make me a saint, and all the time I am very much the other thing. Good night, darling!"

Mrs. Lancing's maid was waiting for her mistress, and there were some letters and a note from Sir Samuel Broxbourne.

Camilla opened the note first.

It was merely a reminder that she had promised to ride with him the following morning if the weather was good.

Sir Samuel was, of course, lending Mrs. Lancing a horse.

"I am deadly tired, but I don't believe I shall sleep a wink, Dennis.

You had better give me some bromide," Camilla said, as she was made ready for bed.

"If I could only be sure," she said to herself when the maid was gone; "he _seems_ just the same, and yet now and then he looks at me in rather an odd way." She caught her breath. "Sammy can be so hard! All the world knows that."

She sat crouched up looking into the fire for a long time, then she shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, if ever the worst were to happen, and he should turn nasty, I have the money now." She got up, and stood looking into the fire once again "Only if," she said slowly, "he will not be satisfied with money, if he...."

She shivered, not once, but several times, and hurriedly taking up the sleeping draught her maid had prepared, she swallowed it, and then got into bed; where she lay staring at the shadows on the walls and ceiling made by the dancing flames of the fire, till her eyes closed at last unconsciously in the sleep she had commanded.

CHAPTER V

Another person lay in bed that night watching the fireglow light up the room and make fantastic patterns and shadows on the walls.

Caroline had been thoroughly tired out when Mrs. Brenton's maid had arranged everything and she had been left alone. But she was too tired to sleep.

The strangeness of her surroundings, and the strangeness of her position generally, filled her with a kind of excitement. She had not very much in front of her of a pleasurable nature, and yet the morrow had for her a certain glamour.