Peregrine's Progress Part 81

"Devil take this cravat!" exclaimed Anthony, wrestling with it before a mirror. "If they don't come soon, 't will be wreck, demmit! I wish to heaven they'd come."

"So do I, Anthony!"

"Finishing touches, I expect, Perry--they will do it! And mean to surprise us, of course." But as moment after moment elapsed, his impatience grew. "I wonder what's keeping 'em!" he exclaimed.

"I wonder!" said I.

At the end of ten minutes he was striding up and down the room in a very ferment.

"d.a.m.ned strange!" he muttered. "Devilish incomprehensible! They must know we're here. Been waiting fifteen minutes now, begad! Getting beyond a joke--deuced exasperating, Perry, y' know. Dammit, man, why can't you say something, do something, instead of sitting there so devilish calm and serene, staring before you like an infernal sphinx?"

At the end of twenty minutes Anthony could wait no more and bidding me follow, jerked open the door and strode out. But I sat there staring before me at an empty fireplace and still all my thought was of the chaise with the red wheels.

But presently my gaze came by chance upon something that lay in a corner of the hearth, a piece of paper crumpled and rent as in pa.s.sionate haste. For a while I viewed it idly, heedlessly, then all at once I saw a name, a scrawling signature plain to read; next moment the fragment of paper was in my grasp and I read this:

... confess to find you more bewitchingly beautiful than ever. And therefore, having regard to what transpired between us in Italy, you will come this evening without fail to Your ever adoring slave and master, HAREDALE.

How long I remained staring at this fragment of paper I do not know, but I started suddenly to see Atkinson bowing in the doorway and followed him from the room and downstairs and suddenly found myself in a polite tumult; silks rustled, feathers nodded, turbans bowed and jewels glittered.

But almost at once, amid all this throng, my eyes saw but one. Tall she was, with jewels that sparkled in her dark and l.u.s.trous hair; how she was gowned I cannot remember, but her white throat was unadorned save for a small gold chain whence hung a plain gold locket, at sight of which my heart seemed to swell within me.

Flushed and bright-eyed, she stood beside Lord Wyvelstoke to receive the many guests. And viewing her as I stood thus, myself unseen amid the crowd, beholding her serene and n.o.ble carriage, her vivid colouring, the cla.s.sic mould of form and features, the grace and ease of her every movement, I saw she was indeed more beautiful than I dreamed and caught my breath in a very ecstasy. Here was Diana herself, yet a Diana glorified even as Lord Wyvelstoke had said, and with a thousand elusive graces beyond my poor description.

And now I was bowing before her, heard her tremulous murmur of "Peregrine!" and answered back as tremulously, "Diana!" and so, yielding place to others, I pa.s.sed on, to bow and smile and chatter inanities with such of the guests as were of my acquaintance, but yearning for chance of speech with her alone.

Then, somehow, she was beside me, her hand upon my arm, and we were walking, though whither I cared not, my every sense thrilled by her gracious ease, her stately beauty and all the wonder of her.

I remember we sat and talked of the past two years, of much that she had seen and done; and she questioned me a little breathlessly and always of myself, and I, conscious of the many bewildering changes in her and of those deep, grey eyes looking at me beneath their level brows, or hidden by their down-sweeping black lashes, answered briefly or very much at random, so that she questioned me at last:

"Peregrine, are you listening?"

"Yes--no!" I answered. "How can I? You are so--wonderful!"

At this the rich colour deepened in her cheek and her eyes grew ineffably tender.

"And you," she murmured, "you are still my Peregrine of the Silent Places, the gentleman who stooped to teach me that love could be--a holy thing--"

From the distance stole the sound of music and suddenly, as if conjured up of these sweet strains, were eager gentlemen all about us, vying with each other for the honour of escorting her down to the ballroom.

"Miss Lovel," simpered a gallant young exquisite, his fashionably pallid features peeping out between the silkiest of glossy whiskers, "we are to be favahed, I think, to be charmed and delighted by your incomparable singing--aw, how do, Vereker! Miss Lovel, you behold me a humble amba.s.sador, to beg, to entreat you to keep us waiting no longer--"

"The evening is young, my lord," she answered lightly, "though your impatience is flattering, I vow--"

"Impatience, Miss Lovel?" sighed a gorgeous being in scarlet and epaulettes. "Impatience--haw--is quite inadequate to express our--hum--I should say, my own sentiments; 'impatience' is a word too--ha--altogether too feeble! For my own part I should--haw--I should rather say we--"

"Pa.s.sion, ma'm, pa.s.sion!" exclaimed a square-faced gentleman in naval blue. "Speaking as a blunt sailor, pa.s.sion's the word, Miss Lovel--pa.s.sion. Pa.s.sion's the only word, I think, gentlemen?"

"Indubitably!"

"Positively!"

"Per-fectly!"

Hereupon the Army retired a little discomfited but rallied sufficiently to suggest the word "languish."

"Behold us then, Miss Lovel, pa.s.sioning--" said the Navy.

"And--haw--languishing, Miss Lovel--" sighed the Army.

"Behold us then unanimously beseeching you--aha, here comes Pevensey to add his supplication to ours."

The Duke shot his ruffle, fixed his eyegla.s.s and bowed.

"Permit me, Miss Lovel, to add my pet.i.tion! Vereker will spare you to us awhile, I am sure!" said he. "To behold a G.o.ddess is to be blessed; to hear her sing will be--"

"Joy!" suggested the Navy.

"Divine!" sighed the Army.

"Transcendent rapture!" quoth the Duke.

Diana laughed and rose, looking from one to other with that serene and level gaze I knew so well, and saluted them with a slow and graceful curtsey.

"Indeed you overwhelm me, sirs," said she, smiling. "Your impatience shall be satisfied, you shall pa.s.sion and languish no longer!" And now as I bowed above her hand came her whisper, "I go to sing for you--to you, Peregrine!"

Then, giving her fan to Navy and her gloves to Army, she took the Duke's arm, and moved away.

And in a while, sitting in a corner of the great ballroom between my two uncles, I saw her stand before this august a.s.semblage serene in her proud, young beauty; saw her calm gaze seek until it met mine and drew my breath a little quicker because of her very loveliness.

Then I felt the smart of sudden tears as from the orchestra whispered a loved and familiar melody that rose, little by little, into that wild and plaintive Zingari air she had sung so often in the Silent Places years ago.

And now from her white throat stole a murmur of sweet sound, swelling gradually to a full, round sweetness, rising to a pa.s.sion of sorrow and heartbreak, and dying to a sigh, was gone.

For a long moment after the final liquid note had died away was utter stillness, an awed silence; then some one ventured to clap, others joined in, and upon this sound came shouts, cries, cheer on cheer--a frantic ovation.

"By Gad, Perry," exclaimed my uncle George, blinking moist lashes.

"She--she can sing, ye know! What I mean is she can--sing, b'gad! What d' you say, Jervas?"

"That you are exactly right, George, she can sing!" answered my uncle Jervas softly. "She and her voice are one in beauty. And she signals you, Perry, I think!"

"Be off, Peregrine!" said my uncle George. "Be off, lucky dog--London will run mad--she'll be the reigning toast to-morrow."

The Army and the Navy yielded her to me with a somewhat bad grace, and her slim fingers on my arm guided me through the throng to a deep curtained window recess, and in this comparative seclusion she turned and faced me, and I saw that she was trembling a little.

"Peregrine," she murmured, wistful and eager, "am I changed very much--too much? I have worked--so hard and all--all for you--O Peregrine--dear--do I truly please you?"

"Please me!" I mumbled. "Oh, my Diana--!" Her lashes drooped and then, as she swayed to me, I clasped her in my arms and, tremulous, fragrant, vital with love and youth, she gave her lips to mine.