Prince Charlie Part 14

Living a romance is less alluring than writing one: Masters found it so.

He had been wont to believe in the parts he cast his characters for. He was learning!

Stumbling up the steps on to the wall, he started to walk home. But he halted, suddenly, before he had taken half-a-dozen paces. No drill sergeant's command ever brought up an absent-minded beggar on parade as did the words which fell on his ear.

"I thought that was you, Mr. Masters!"

Her voice! The voice of his shattered idol! The same voice: just as fresh and soft and kind as ever! Her voice, speaking to him! Could it be? Or was it a dream simply, a chimera of his brain? Or was this voice--this voice ringing, singing in his ears now--the result of his highly fevered imagination only?

He feared to turn his head to see. To know whether it was in reality the woman for whom he had been ready to lay down his life--whom he had considered a princess among women; chaste, pure, modest; whose dethronation had been so recent. Whom he had come to think of as soiled.

Yes! She was there before him in the flesh! This perfidious parody of perfection, this trans.m.u.ted ideal. He waited for a moment motionless; then raised his cap--a merely mechanical act.

Besides, being a woman, whatever else she might be, she was exempt from rudeness at his hands.

Her s.e.x protected her.

CHAPTER XII

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

"Aren't you going to sit on Our Seat? Or don't you need a rest?"

It was said archly; the significant reference to Our Seat, subtly conveyed. She seemed to have shaken off the depression of yesterday. Was herself; her own blithe, bright self again.

Mechanically Masters accepted the implied invitation; sat. There ensued silence; a silence which told more than speech. Not the silence which breathes of sweet accord between two understanding hearts.

She, on her part, was filled with wonder--expectancy--an undefined sense of something being wrong. He was not insensible of the fact that the plumage of his dove was rustling. No woman could, of course, endure such treatment.

The need for speech on his part was plain: but, somehow, he was at a loss for words. Was yet alive to the fact that she would read his speechlessness her own way: would set him down as guilty of caddish behaviour. The silence became tense: the strain was fast becoming unbearable.

But little time pa.s.sed; she got to her feet--being the kind of woman quick to take offence. The insult was felt the more acutely because, she told herself, she was alone to blame: had simply courted it, brought it on herself.

She had wanted to meet this man. Had hurried on to the parade with the feeling in her heart that it would be good to meet him. Had sat on the seat for a minute's rest and a faint sense of grief that she had not encountered him on her walk. Had been thinking disconsolately of walking home, when she was rendered joyful by his presence.

And then--to be treated like that! Had she offended him? Such a possibility pa.s.sed rapidly through her mind; was as rapidly rejected as a theory untenable. Did he disapprove of her coming there alone, at that time?

She knew that some men were punctilious in regard to such matters. But he--natural, unconventional as he was himself--surely it could not be that. His voice interrupted her reflections. In a husky, strained tone, looking neither right nor left, but aimlessly in front of him, he said:

"Nice, fine evening, isn't it?"

Another credit note to our fickle climate! But the utter incongruity of the remark, the exceedingly strange tone of his voice, caused her to wheel round and look at him. Then she saw. The moon chanced to be free from clouds just then; its pale beams accentuated the lividity of Masters' face.

"Oh, my G.o.d! you are ill! What has happened--an accident? What can I do for you?"

As she was quick of thought so she was quick of movement. In a moment was kneeling beside him--all the annoyance and hastily-aroused temper gone to the winds. Only her helpful woman's instinct aching to be of service to him: to the man she loved.

"It is nothing. Don't--please. Don't worry yourself."

Impulsively her arms went up to his shoulders in sheer sympathy and kindliness. All the stiffness, all the resentment, left her. She was only just plainly and simply a woman.

That being the case, her womanly pride was relegated to a back seat. Her precious dignity went down in value; right down to nil. It was not in the question at all--that question she asked as she gave herself to the needs of the moment; asked with real anxiety:

"Tell me--what to do?"

The light was there on her face, in her eyes! Oh, unmistakably there!

The light which yesterday he had prayed he might see; that he had yearned for with his heart and soul. Her soft beautiful radiant eyes were looking with eager, tearful anxiety into his own.

For a moment--the influence of the moment and forgetfulness in combination--he felt that he must grasp, grip, strain her to him. Hold her in one long, lasting embrace. Then--he remembered! That an hour back she had been clinging to, looking into another man's face with the same tearful eyes! Oh, the excellence, super-excellence, of her acting! He would have given a king's ransom for the ability to laugh just then--at himself.

Could it be--could it? For a brief instant he doubted. The next moment blamed himself for being a fool. But not a blind fool--oh, no! He had the evidence of his own eyes: the evidence for the prosecution.

Most of us, under such circ.u.mstances, willingly take upon ourselves the threefold responsibility of witness, jury and judge. It is instinctive in most men: the desire to ladle out justice. But the appeal court sometimes oversets the decisions; Justice is not infallible--perhaps her blindness has something to do with it.

Few of us betray modesty when wearing the ermine. The more rigorously we silence the opposing counsel--the evidence of our own hearts--the more we pride ourselves on our impartiality, our exemplary Roman-fatherly administration of justice. We are apt to ignore any talk of a Court of Appeal; arrogate to ourselves supreme wisdom.

Curiously enough, the more severe the sentence we p.r.o.nounce, the more we rise in our own estimation. The rise may not be permanent--seldom is; but while we are at the high water mark of self-a.s.surance we generally make the most of the tide. The sailing along on it is helped by the wind of serene self-complacency; we sun ourselves in vanity of our prowess.

Forgetfulness is there; that the tide--like the proverbial lane or worm--has a knack of turning.

The dominant note in Masters at the moment was anger. That such a woman should have power over men. He mentally thanked G.o.d that her power over him was of the past. Laid the flattering unction to his soul that perhaps he was cleaner-minded than his fellows. Man applies curious ointments to his wounds!

But that thankfulness did not arrest his anger; made it the greater perhaps. He was hardly in a state of that judicial calm which should characterize dispa.s.sionate inquiry. Being angry, he spoke--after the manner of the angry man--foolishly; said brutally:

"This has been a busy evening with you. Don't you get tired of hugging men? I am the second in one hour."

For a moment she made no movement, no sound--save of the quick indrawing of her breath. It was as if some icy blast had suddenly a.s.sailed and frozen her to the spot. Her face retained the same look; she was too amazed--not understanding--too astonished to do more than look. He went on mercilessly:

"I saw the parting at your back door; I was pa.s.sing. Saw you s...o...b..ring over a man there as you seem inclined to s...o...b..r over me."

It was as if he had struck her! She drew in her breath so that it sounded whistle-like. Fell back; extending her arms, seemed as if she would push him from her as something unclean. In colourlessness her face rivalled his.

"How dare you----"

Those words were shaped on her white lips. Then she stopped. The lips trembled, tightened. Rising to her feet, the indignation in her eyes as she looked down at him completed the sentence.

He laughed; that laugh with the underlying sobbing catch in it, for his laughter was not born of merriment. Said, righteous indignation shining in his own eyes too:

"Dare! What do you mean? The witnessing of it, or telling you of it?"

She scorned reply; he was really too contemptible! Yet the woman in her bubbled to the surface; she could not resist an effort to hurt him:

"And you--you played the spy!"

A raising of his shoulders, a lowering of his eyes, as he answered: