Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 68

"Do come, Jack," whispered Mrs. Davenant.

"I'll see," said Jack, grimly, and Una looked down uneasily; she understood his reluctance to go to the old place.

"Oh, we will take no refusal," said Stephen, buoyantly. "And what are your plans, Lady Bell?"

Lady Bell looked up with rather a start and a flush.

"I--I--don't quite know," she said. "I had been thinking of going to a small place we have at Earl's Court."

"Earl's Court!" exclaimed Jack. "Why, that is only thirteen miles or so from the Hurst."

"Is it?" said Lady Bell. "I didn't know. I haven't seen it. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't made a round of inspection of the property yet. My stewards are always bothering me to do so, but I don't seem to have time."

"A sovereign cannot be expected to visit the whole of her kingdom," said Stephen, with a smile.

Lady Bell sighed.

"I often wish the old earl had left me five hundred a year and a cottage somewhere," she said, quietly. "I should have been a happier woman. Oh, here is the claret. Give Mr. Newcombe the Lafitte, Simc.o.x. Mr.

Davenant----"

"I always follow Jack's suit," said Stephen, rising to open the door for the ladies. "He is an infallible guide in such matters."

"Fancy a woman lamenting the extent of her wealth," he said, with something like a sneer, as he went back to the table. "If any girl ought to be happy that girl ought to be. What a chance for some young fellow!

My dear Jack, if I had been in your place----"

Jack looked up with a tinge of red in his face.

"What nonsense. Lady Bell knows better than to be caught by such chaff as I am. Besides, I am more than content. I wouldn't exchange Una for a d.u.c.h.ess, with the riches of Peru in her pockets. What about the commissionership, or whatever it is, Stephen?"

"All in good time, my dear Jack. Those sort of things aren't done in a moment; the matter is in hand, and we shall get it, be sure. Meanwhile, if you want any money----"

"Thanks, no," said Jack, easily.

He had only that morning negotiated a bill with Mr. Moss for another hundred pounds.

Stephen smiled evilly behind his pocket handkerchief. He held that bill in his pocketbook at that moment, in company with all Jack's previous ones.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

The two men sat beside the fire almost in silence. Jack was trying to get over his reluctance to go to the Hurst, and wondering what would become of him if he did not, and Una left him all alone in town; and Stephen was wondering whether it was time to strike the blow he meditated.

Very soon Jack jumped up.

"If you've had enough wine, let us join the ladies," he said, and went toward the door.

Stephen followed him, but turned back to fetch his pocket handkerchief.

Lying beside it, on the table, was a rose which had fallen from the bosom of Una's dress. He took it up, and looked at it with that look which a man bestows on some trifle which has been worn by the woman he loves, and then, as if by an irresistible impulse, raised it to his lips, kissing it pa.s.sionately, and put it carefully in his bosom. As he did so, he raised his eyes to the gla.s.s, which reflected one side of the room, and saw the slight figure of a woman standing in the open door and watching him.

The light from the carefully shaded lamp was too dim to allow him to see the face distinctly, but something in the figure caused him to feel a sudden chill.

He turned sharply and walked to the door; but the hall was empty and there was no sound of retreating footsteps.

"Some servant maid waiting to come in to clear the table," he muttered.

But he returned to the dining-room, and drank off a gla.s.s of liquor before going to the drawing-room, from which ripples of Jack's frank laughter were floating in the hall.

Lady Bell was seated at the piano, playing and singing in her light-hearted, careless fashion; Jack and Una were seated in a dimly-lit corner, talking in an undertone.

Stephen went up to the piano and stood apparently listening intently, but in reality watching the other two under his lowered lids.

The presence of the rose in his bosom seemed to heighten the pa.s.sion which burned in his heart; and the sight of Jack bending over Una, and of her rapt, up-turned face as she looked up, drinking in his lightest word as if it were gospel, maddened him.

It was with a start that he became conscious that Lady Bell had ceased playing, and that she, like him, was watching the lovers.

"Miss Una and Mr. Newcombe seem very good friends," she said, with a forced smile.

"Do they not?" said Stephen, in his softest voice. "Too good."

Lady Bell looked up at him quickly.

"What do you mean?"

Stephen looked down at her gravely.

"Can you keep a secret, Lady Bell?" he said, hesitatingly.

"Sometimes," she said. "What is it?"

Stephen glanced across at Jack and Una.

"I'm rather anxious about our young friends," he said, his voice dropped still lower, his head bent forward with such an insidious smile that Lady Bell could not, for the life of her, help thinking of a serpent.

"Anxious!" she echoed, her heart beating. "As how?"

"Can you not guess?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"You--you mean that they may fall in love with each other. Well, they are not badly matched," said Lady Bell, bravely, though her heart was aching.

"Not badly, in one sense," said Stephen, after a pause; "but as badly as two persons could be in all others. They are a match as regards their means. They are both penniless."

Lady Bell looked up with a start.

"Is--is Mr. Newcombe so badly off? I thought--that is, I fancied he had a wealthy uncle----" She paused.