Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 45

"To love without return--without hope!" she mused--"Oh, it would be torture!--to me, death! Poor Robin!"

Poor Robin, indeed! He would not have dared to caress her with the wild and tender audacity of Amadis de Jocelyn!

"My love!" she whispered to the silence.--"My love!" she repeated, as she knelt down to say her prayers, sending the adored and idealised name up on vibrations of light to the throne of the Most High,--and "My love!" were the last words she murmured as she nestled into her little bed, her fair head on its white pillow looking like the head of one of Botticelli's angels. Her own success,--her celebrity as a genius in literature,--her dreams of fame--these now were all as naught!--less than the clouds of a night or the mists of a morning--there was nothing for her in earth or heaven save "My love!"

CHAPTER V

Lord Blythe was sitting alone in his library. He was accustomed to sit alone, and rather liked it. It was the evening after that of the d.u.c.h.ess of Deanshire's reception; his wife had gone to another similar "crush," but had graciously excused his attendance, for which he was honestly grateful. He was old enough, at sixty-eight, to appreciate the luxury of peace and quietness,--he had put on an old lounge coat and an easy pair of slippers, and was thoroughly enjoying himself in a comfortable arm-chair with a book and a cigar. The book was by "Ena Armitage"--the cigar, one of a choice brand known chiefly to fastidious connoisseurs of tobacco. The book, however, was a powerful rival to the charm of the fragrant Havana--for every now and again he allowed the cigar to die out and had to re-light it, owing to his fascinated absorption in the volume he held. He was an exceedingly clever man--deeply versed in literature and languages, and in his younger days had been a great student,--he had read nearly every book of note, and was as familiar with the greatest authors as with his greatest friends, so that he was well fitted to judge without prejudice the merits of any new aspirant to literary fame. But he was wholly unprepared for the power and the daring genius which stamped itself on every page of the new writer's work,--he almost forgot, while reading, whether it was man or woman who had given such a production to the world, so impressed was he by the masterly treatment of a simple subject made beautiful by a scholarly and incisive style. It was literature of the highest kind,--and realising this with every sentence he perused, it was with a shock of surprise that he remembered the personality of the author--the un.o.btrusive girl who had been the "show animal" at Her Grace of Deanshire's reception and dance.

"Positively, I can scarcely believe it!" he exclaimed sotto-voce--"That child I met last night actually wrote this amazing piece of work! It's almost incredible! A nice child too,--simple and perfectly natural,--nothing of the blue-stocking about her. Well, well! What a career she'll make!--what a name!--that is, if she takes care of herself and doesn't fall in love, which she's sure to do! That's the worst of women--G.o.d occasionally gives them brains, but they've scarcely begun to use them when heart and sentiment step in and overthrow all reason. Now, we men--"

He paused,--thinking. There had been a time in his life--long ago, when he was very young--when heart and sentiment had very nearly overthrown reason in his own case--and sometimes he was inclined to regret that such overthrow had been averted.

"For the moment it is perhaps worth everything else!" he mused--"But--for the moment only! The ecstasy does not last."

His cigar had gone out again, and he re-lit it. The clock on the mantelpiece struck twelve with a silvery clang, and almost at the same instant he heard the rustle of a silk gown and a light footstep,--the door opened, and his wife appeared.

"Are you busy?" she enquired--"May I come in?"

He rose, with the stately old-fashioned courtesy habitual to him.

"By all means come in!" he said--"You have returned early?"

"Yes." She loosened her rich evening cloak, lined with ermine, and let it fall on the back of the chair in which she seated herself--"It was a boresome affair,--there were recitations and music which I hate--so I came away. You are reading?"

"Not now"--and he closed the volume on the table beside him--"But I HAVE been reading--that amazing book by the young girl we met at the Deanshires' last night--Ena Armitage. It's really a fine piece of work."

She was silent.

"You didn't take to her, I'm afraid?" he went on--"Yet she seemed a charming, modest little person. Perhaps she was not quite what you expected?"

Lady Blythe gave a sudden harsh laugh.

"You are right! She certainly was not what I expected! Is the door well shut?"

Surprised at her look and manner, he went to see.

"The door is quite closed," he said, rather stiffly. "One would think we were talking secrets--and we never do!"

"No!" she rejoined, looking at him curiously--"We never do. We are model husband and wife, having nothing to conceal!"

He took up his cigar which he had laid down for a minute, and with careful minuteness flicked off the ash.

"You have something to tell me," he remarked, quietly--"Pray go on, and don't let me interrupt you. Do you object to my smoking?"

"Not in the least."

He stood with his back to the fireplace, a tall, stately figure of a man, and looked at her expectantly,--she meanwhile reclined in a cushioned chair with the folds of her ermine falling about her, like a queen of languorous luxury.

"I suppose," she began--"hardly anything in the social life of our day would very much surprise or shock you--?"

"Very little, certainly!" he answered, smiling coldly--"I have lived a long time, and am not easily surprised!"

"Not even if it concerned some one you know?"

His fine open brow knitted itself in a momentary line of puzzled consideration.

"Some one I know?" he repeated--"Well, I should certainly be very sorry to hear anything of a scandalous nature connected with the girl we saw last night--she looked too young and too innocent--"

"Innocent--oh yes!" and Lady Blythe again laughed that harsh laugh of suppressed hysterical excitement--"She is innocent enough!"

"Pardon! I thought you were about to speak of her, as you said she was not what you expected--"

He paused,--startled by the haggard and desperate expression of her face.

"Richard," she said--"You are a good man, and you hold very strong opinions about truth and honour and all that sort of thing. I don't believe you could ever understand badness--real, downright badness--could you?"

"Badness? ... in that child?" he exclaimed.

She gave an impatient, angry gesture.

"Dear me, you are perfectly obsessed by 'that child,' as you call her!"

she answered--"You had better know the truth then at once,--'that child' is my daughter!"

"Your daughter?--your--your--"

The words died on his lips--he staggered slightly as though under a sudden physical blow, and gripped the mantelpiece behind him with one hand.

"Good G.o.d!" he half whispered--"What do you mean?--you have had no children--"

"Not by you,--no!" she said, with a flash of scorn--"Not in marriage, that church-and-law form of union!--but by love and pa.s.sion--yes!

Stop!--do not look at me like that! I have not been false to you--I have not betrayed you! Your honour has been safe with me! It was before I met you that this thing happened."

He stood rigid and very pale.

"Before you met me?"

"Yes. I was a silly, romantic, headstrong girl,--my parents were compelled to go abroad, and I was left in the charge of one of my mother's society friends--a thoroughly worldly, unprincipled woman whose life was made up of intrigue and gambling. And I ran away with a man--Pierce Armitage--"

"Pierce Armitage!"

The name broke from him like a cry of agony.

"Yes--Pierce Armitage. Did you know him?"

He looked at her with eyes in which there was a strange horror.