Comedies of Courtship Part 25

"No, with us."

Sir Roger looked her mercilessly full in the face, regardless of her blushes.

"That," he observed with emphasis, "is exactly what you wanted, Miss Bellairs."

Then he turned to the company, holding a full gla.s.s in his hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "some of us have had a narrow escape.

Whether we shall be glad of it or sorry hereafter, I don't know--do you, Charlie? But hero's a health to----"

But Dora, glancing apprehensively at the General, whispered, "Not yet!"

"To Dynamite!" said Sir Roger Deane.

POSTSCRIPT

It should be added that a fuller, more graphic, and more sensational account of the outrage in the Palais-Royal than this pen has been capable of inscribing will appear, together with much other curious and enlightening matter, in Lady Deane's next work. The author also takes occasion in that work--and there is little doubt that the subject was suggested by the experiences of some of her friends--to discuss the nature, quality, and duration of the Pa.s.sion of Love. She concludes--if it be permissible thus far to antic.i.p.ate the publication of her book--that all True Love is absolutely permanent and indestructible, untried by circ.u.mstance and untouched by time; and this opinion is, she says, indorsed by every woman who has ever been in love. Thus fortified, the conclusion seems beyond cavil. If, therefore, any incidents here recorded appear to conflict with it, we must imitate the discretion of Plato and say, either these persons were not Sons of the G.o.ds--that is. True Lovers--or they did not do such things.

Unfortunately, however, Lady Deane's proof-sheets were accessible too late to allow of the t.i.tle of this story being changed. So it must stand--"The Wheel of Love;" but if any lady (men are worse than useless) will save the author's credit by proving that wheels do not go round, he will be very much obliged--and will offer her every facility.

THE LADY OF THE POOL

CHAPTER I

A FIRM BELIEVER

"I see Mr. Vansittart Merceron's at the Court again, mamma."

"Yes, dear. Lady Merceron told me he was coming. She wanted to consult him about Charlie."

"She's always consulting him about Charlie, and it never makes any difference."

Mrs. Bush.e.l.l looked up from her needlework; her hands were full with needle and stuff, and a couple of pins protruded from her lips. She glanced at her daughter, who stood by the window in the bright blaze of a brilliant sunset, listlessly hitting the blind-cord and its ta.s.sel to and fro.

"The poor boy's very young still," mumbled Mrs. Bush.e.l.l through her pins.

"He's twenty-five last month," returned Millicent. "I know, because there's exactly three years between him and me."

The sinking rays defined Miss Bush.e.l.l's form with wonderful clearness.

She was very tall, and the severe well-cut cloth gown she wore set off the stately lines of her figure. She had a great quant.i.ty of fair hair and a handsome face, spoilt somewhat by a slightly excessive breadth across the cheeks; as her height demanded or excused, her hands and feet were not small, though well shaped. Would Time have arrested his march for ever, there would have been small fault to find with Nature's gifts to Miss Bush.e.l.l; but, as her mother said, Millie was just what she had been at twenty-one; and Mrs. Bush.e.l.l was now extremely stout.

Millie escaped the inference by discrediting her mother's recollection.

The young lady wore her hat, and presently she turned away from the window, remarking:

"I think I shall go for a stroll. I've had no exercise to-day."

Either inclination, or perhaps that threatening possibility from which she strove to avert her eyes, made Millie a devotee of active pursuits.

She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside, golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression) suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar acknowledged in her an invaluable a.s.sistant. By a strange coincidence she seemed to suit the house she lived in--one of those large white square dwelling's, devoid of ornament, yet possessing every substantial merit, and attaining, by virtue of their dimensions and simplicity, an effect of handsomeness denied to many more tricked-out building's. The house satisfied; so did Millie, unless the judge were very critical.

"I shall just walk round by the Pool and back," she added as she opened the door.

"My dear, it's four miles!"

"Well, it's only a little after six, and we don't dine till eight."

Encountering no further opposition than a sigh of admiration--three hundred yards was the limit of pleasure in a walk to her mother--Millie Bush.e.l.l started on her way, dangling a neat ebony stick in her hand, and setting her feet down with a firm decisive tread. It did not take her long to cover the two miles between her and her destination.

Leaving the road, she entered the grounds of the Court and, following a little path which ran steeply down hill, she found herself by the willows and reeds fringing the edge of the Pool. Opposite to her, on the higher bank, some seven or eight feet above the water, rose the temple, a small cla.s.sical erection, used now, when at all, as a summer-house, but built to commemorate the sad fate of Agatha Merceron.

The sun had just sunk, and the Pool looked chill and gloomy; the deep water under the temple was black and still. Millie's robust mind was not p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, yet she was rather relieved to think that, with the sun only just gone, there was a clear hour before Agatha Merceron would come out of the temple, slowly and fearfully descend the shallow flight of marble steps, and lay herself down in the water to die. That happened every evening, according to the legend, an hour after sunset--every evening, for the last two hundred years, since poor Agatha, bereft and betrayed, had found the Pool kinder than the world, and sunk her sorrow and her shame and her beauty there--such shame and such beauty as had never been before or after in all the generations of the Mercerons.

"What nonsense it all is!" said Millie aloud. "But I'm afraid Charlie is silly enough to believe it."

As she spoke her eye fell on a Canadian canoe, which lay at the foot of the steps. She recognized it as Charlie Merceron's, and, knowing that approach to the temple from the other side was to be gained only by a difficult path through a tangled wood, and that the canoe usually lay under a little shed a few yards from where she stood, she concluded that Charlie was in the temple. There was nothing surprising in that: it was a favorite haunt of his. She raised her voice; and called to him. At first no answer came, and she repeated:

"Charlie! Charlie!"

After a moment of waiting a head was thrust out of a window in the side of the temple--a head in a straw hat.

"Hullo!" said Charlie; Merceron in tones of startled surprise. Then, seeing the visitor, he added: "Oh, it's you, Millie! How did you know I was here?"

"By the canoe, of course."

"Hang the canoe!" muttered Charlie, and his head disappeared. A second later he came out of the doorway and down the steps. Standing on the lowest, he shouted--the Pool was about sixty feet across--"What do you want?"

"How rude you are!" shouted Miss Bush.e.l.l in reply.

Charlie got into the canoe and began to paddle across. He had just reached the other side, when Millie screamed:

"Look, look, Charlie!" she cried. "The temple!"

"What?"

"I--I saw something white at the window."

Charlie got out of the canoe; hastily.

"What?" he asked again, walking up to Miss Bush.e.l.l.

"I declare I saw something white at the window. Oh, Charlie! But it's all----"

"Bosh? Of course it is. There's nothing in the temple."

"Well, I thought--I wonder you like to be there."