Lord Tony's Wife Part 9

Immediately there appeared to be quite a conspiracy among the young folk in the ball-room to keep both Lord Tony's and Mlle. Yvonne's movements hidden from the prying eyes of M. le duc: and anon His Royal Highness, after a comprehensive survey of the ball-room and a few gracious words to his more intimate circle, wandered away to the card-room, and as luck would have it he claimed M. le duc de Kernogan for a partner at faro.

Now M. le duc was a courtier of the old regime: to have disobeyed the royal summons would in his eyes have been nothing short of a crime. He followed the royal party to the card-room, and on his way thither had one gleam of comfort in that he saw Lady Blakeney sitting on a sofa in the octagon hall engaged in conversation with his daughter, whilst Lord Anthony Dewhurst was nowhere in sight.

However, the gleam of comfort was very brief, for less than a quarter of an hour after he had sat down at His Highness' table, Lady Blakeney came into the card-room and stood thereafter for some little while close beside the Prince's chair. The next hour after that was one of special martyrdom for the anxious father, for he knew that his daughter was in all probability sitting out in a specially secluded corner in the company of my lord Tony.

If only Martin-Roget were here!

IV

Martin-Roget with the eagle eyes and the airs of an accredited suitor would surely have intervened when my lord Tony in the face of the whole brilliant a.s.sembly in the ball-room, drew Mlle. de Kernogan into the seclusion of the recess underneath the gallery.

My lord Tony was never very glib of tongue. That peculiar dignified shyness which is one of the chief characteristics of well-bred Englishmen caused him to be tongue-tied when he had most to say. It was just with gesture and an appealing pressure of his hand upon her arm that he persuaded Yvonne de Kernogan to sit down beside him on the sofa in the remotest and darkest corner of the recess, and there she remained beside him silent and grave for a moment or two, and stole timid glances from time to time through the veil of her lashes at the finely-chiselled, expressive face of her young English lover.

He was pining to put a question to her, and so great was his excitement that his tongue refused him service, and she, knowing what was hovering on his lips, would not help him out, but a humorous twinkle in her dark eyes, and a faint smile round her lips lit up the habitual seriousness of her young face.

"Mademoiselle ..." he managed to stammer at last. "Mademoiselle Yvonne ... you have seen Lady Blakeney?"

"Yes," she replied demurely, "I have seen Lady Blakeney."

"And ... and ... she told you?"

"Yes. Lady Blakeney told me many things."

"She told you that ... that.... In G.o.d's name, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he added desperately, "do help me out--it is cruel to tease me! Can't you see that I'm nearly crazy with anxiety?"

Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and brilliant, her face shining with the light of a great tenderness.

"Nay, milor," she said earnestly, "I had no wish to tease you. But you will own 'tis a grave and serious step which Lady Blakeney suggested that I should take. I have had no time to think ... as yet."

"But there is no time for thinking, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he said navely. "If you will consent.... Oh! you will consent, will you not?"

he pleaded.

She made no immediate reply, but gradually her hand which rested upon the sofa stole nearer and then nearer to his; and with a quiver of exquisite happiness his hand closed upon hers. The tips of his fingers touched the smooth warm palm and poor Lord Tony had to close his eyes for a moment as his sense of superlative ecstasy threatened to make him faint. Slowly he lifted that soft white hand to his lips.

"Upon my word, Yvonne," he said with quiet fervour, "you will never have cause to regret that you have trusted me."

"I know that well, milor," she replied demurely.

She settled down a shade or two closer to him still.

They were now like two birds in a cosy nest--secluded from the rest of the a.s.sembly, who appeared to them like dream-figures flitting in some other world that had nothing to do with their happiness. The strains of the orchestra who had struck the measure of the first figure of a contredanse sounded like fairy-music, distant, unreal in their ears.

Only their love was real, their joy in one another's company, their hands clasped closely together!

"Tell me," she said after awhile, "how it all came about. It is all so terribly sudden ... so exquisitely sudden. I was prepared of course ...

but not so soon ... and certainly not to-night. Tell me just how it happened."

She spoke English quite fluently, with just a charming slight accent, which he thought the most adorable thing he had ever heard.

"You see, dear heart," he replied, and there was a quiver of intense feeling in his voice as he spoke, "there is a man who not only is the friend whom I love best in all the world, but is also the one whom I trust absolutely, more than myself. Two hours ago he sent for me and told me that grave danger threatened you--threatened our love and our happiness, and he begged me to urge you to consent to a secret marriage ... at once ... to-night."

"And you think this ... this friend knew?"

"I know," he replied earnestly, "that he knew, or he would not have spoken to me as he did. He knows that my whole life is in your exquisite hands--he knows that our happiness is somehow threatened by that man Martin-Roget. How he obtained that information I could not guess ... he had not the time or the inclination to tell me. I flew to make all arrangements for our marriage to-night and prayed to G.o.d--as I have never prayed in my life before--that you, dear heart, would deign to consent."

"How could I refuse when Lady Blakeney advised? She is the kindest and dearest friend I possess. She and your friend ought to know one another.

Will you not tell me who he is?"

"I will present him to you, dear heart, as soon as we are married," he replied with awkward evasiveness. Then suddenly he exclaimed with boyish enthusiasm: "I can't believe it! I can't believe it! It is the most extraordinary thing in the world...."

"What is that, milor?" she asked.

"That you should have cared for me at all. For of course you must care, or you wouldn't be sitting here with me now ... you would not have consented ... would you?"

"You know that I do care, milor," she said in her grave quiet way. "How could it be otherwise?"

"But I am so stupid and so slow," he said navely. "Why! look at me now.

My heart is simply bursting with all that I want to say to you, but I just can't find the words, and I do nothing but talk rubbish and feel how you must despise me."

Once more that humorous little smile played for a moment round Yvonne de Kernogan's serious mouth. She didn't say anything just then, but her delicate fingers gave his hand an expressive squeeze.

"You are not frightened?" he asked abruptly.

"Frightened? Of what?" she rejoined.

"At the step you are going to take?"

"Would I take it," she retorted gently, "if I had any misgivings?"

"Oh! if you had.... Do you know that even now ..." he continued clumsily and haltingly, "now that I have realised just what it will mean to have you ... and just what it would mean to me, G.o.d help me--if I were to lose you ... well!... that even now I would rather go through that h.e.l.l than that you should feel the least bit doubtful or unhappy about it all."

Again she smiled, gently, tenderly up into his eager, boyish face.

"The only unhappiness," she said gravely, "that could ever overtake me in the future would be parting from you, milor."

"Oh! G.o.d bless you for that, my dear! G.o.d bless you for that! But for pity's sake turn your dear eyes away from me or I vow I shall go crazy with joy. Men do go crazy with joy sometimes, you know, and I feel that in another moment I shall stand up and shout at the top of my voice to all the people in the room that within the next few hours the loveliest girl in all the world is going to be my wife."

"She certainly won't be that, if you do shout it at the top of your voice, milor, for father would hear you and there would be an end to our beautiful adventure."

"It will be a beautiful adventure, won't it?" he sighed with unconcealed ecstasy.

"So beautiful, my dear lord," she replied with gentle earnestness, "so perfect, in fact, that I am almost afraid something must happen presently to upset it all."

"Nothing can happen," he a.s.sured her. "M. Martin-Roget is not here, and His Royal Highness is even now monopolising M. le duc de Kernogan so that he cannot get away."

"Your friend must be very clever to manipulate so many strings on our behalf!"

"It is long past midnight now, sweetheart," he said with sudden irrelevance.