Prince Fortunatus Part 41

"Yes, I thought I heard a slight cry," he admitted, gravely.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Moore," said Lady Adela, with her most charming smile, as she began to fold up her notes. "The little piece of realism you have suggested will come in admirably; and I think I've done enough for to-day--thanks to Georgie here, who has just been an angel of patience."

Tea followed, and some idle talk, during which Lionel learned that Lady Adela and her sisters were going down to Brighton the following day. He incidentally mentioned Octavius Quirk's name; whereupon his hostess, who was a sharp and a shrewd woman when she was not dabbling in literature, instantly and graciously explained to him that she had been corresponding a good deal with Octavius Quirk of late, over her new work. She informed him, further, that Octavius Quirk was coming to dine there that evening--what a pity it was that Mr. Moore was engaged every evening at the theatre! When Lionel left, she had persuaded him that he was just as much a favorite as ever; he could very well understand that she had cultivated Octavius Quirk's acquaintance only in his capacity as a kind of pseudo-literary person.

Day after day of this lonely week pa.s.sed; Lionel, all unknown to himself, was marching onward to his fate. On the Sat.u.r.day there were two performances of "The Squire's Daughter;" at night he felt very tired--which was unusual with him; that, or some other palpable excuse, was sufficient to take him down to Victoria station on the Sunday morning. He had forgotten, or put aside, all Maurice Mangan's cool-blooded presentation of his case; undefined longings were in his brain; the future was to be quite different from the past--and somehow Honnor Cunyngham was the central figure in these mirage-like visions. He had formed no definite plans; he had prepared no persuasive appeal; the only and immediate thing he knew was that he wished to be in the same place with her, breathing the same air with her, with the chance of catching a distant glimpse of her, even if he were himself to remain unseen. Would she be out walking along the sea-front after church?

Surely so, when she had Lady Adela and her sisters as her guests. And if not, he would call in the afternoon; how well he remembered the rather dusky drawing-room and its curious scent of sweet-briar or some similar perfume. A hushed half-hour there would be something to be treasured up and conned over again and again in subsequent recollection. Would she be sitting near the window, half-shadowed by the curtains? Or standing in front of the fire, perhaps, absently gazing into it, her tall and elegant figure outlined by the crimson flames?

When he arrived at Brighton he walked rapidly away down to the King's Road, and there he moderated his pace, keeping his eyes alert. The people were beginning to come out from the various churches and many of them, before going in-doors, joined that slow promenade up and down the greensward farther west. But, look where he might, there was no sign of Lady Cunyngham and her daughter, nor of Lady Adela and her two sisters.

They would have been easily distinguishable, he thought. That they were in Brighton, he had no doubt; but apparently they were nowhere in this throng; so, rather downhearted, he retraced his steps to the Orleans Club, where he pa.s.sed an hour or two with such acquaintances as he met there.

He was more fortunate in the afternoon. When he went along to Adelaide Crescent, Lady Cunyngham and her daughter were both at home; and it was with a sense of joyous relief--and yet with a touch of disquietude too--that he found himself ascending the soft-carpeted stairs. When he was shown into the drawing-room, he found only one occupant there--it was Honnor Cunyngham herself, who was standing by a big portfolio set on a bra.s.s stand, and apparently engaged in arranging some large photographs. She turned and greeted him very pleasantly and without any surprise; she went to two low settles coming out at right angles from the fireplace and sat down, while he took a seat opposite her; if he was rather nervous and bewildered, at finding himself thus suddenly face to face with her and alone with her, she was quite calm and self-possessed.

"Mother has just gone up-stairs; she will be here presently," Miss Honnor said. "But what a pity my sisters did not know you were coming down. After church they all went off to visit an old lady, a great friend of theirs, who can't get out-of-doors nowadays; and so I suppose they stayed on so as to keep her company. However, I have no doubt they will be here before long. What a pleasant thing it must be for you," she added, "to be able to run down to Brighton for a day after a week's hard work at the theatre."

"Yes," he answered, in a half-bitter kind of fashion. "It is a pleasant thing to get away from the theatre--anywhere. I think I am becoming rather sick of the theatre and all its a.s.sociations."

"Really, Mr. Moore," she said, with a smile, "it is surprising to hear you say so--you of all men."

"What comes of it? You play the fool before a lot of idle people, until--until--your nature is subdued to what it works in, I suppose.

What service do you do to any human being?--of what use are you in the world?"

"Surely you confer a benefit on the public when you provide them with innocent amus.e.m.e.nt," she ventured to say--she had not considered this subject much, if at all.

"But what comes of it? They laugh for an hour or two and go home. It is all gone--like a breath of wind--"

"But isn't mere distraction a useful and wholesome thing?" she remonstrated again, "I know a great philosopher who is exceedingly fond of billiards, and very eager about the game too; but he doesn't expect to gain any moral enlightenment from three b.a.l.l.s and a bit of stick.

Distraction, amus.e.m.e.nt, is necessary to human beings; we can't always be thinking of the problems of life."

"They talk of the divine power of song!" he continued. "Well, what I want to do is this. I can sing a little; and I want to know that this gift I have from Nature hasn't been entirely thrown away--scattered to the winds and lost. Here in Brighton they are always getting up morning or afternoon concerts for charitable purposes; and I wish, Miss Honnor, when you happen to be interested in any of these, you would let me know; I should be delighted to run down and volunteer my services. I should be just delighted. It would be something saved. If I were struck down by an illness, and had to lie thinking, I could say to myself that I had done this little sc.r.a.p of good--not much for a man to do, but I suppose all that could be expected from a singer."

She could not understand this strange disparagement of himself and his profession; and she may have been vaguely afraid of the drift of these confidences; at all events, when she had thanked him for his generous offer, she rose and went to the portfolio.

"There are some things here that I think will interest you, Mr. Moore,"

she said. "They only arrived last night, and I was just putting them away when you came in."

He went to the portfolio; she took out two or three large photographs and handed them to him; the first glance showed him what they were--pictures of the Aivron and the Geinig valleys, with the rocks and pools and overhanging woods he knew so well. He regarded them for an instant or two.

"Do you know what first made me long to get away from the theatre?" he said, in a low voice. "It was those places there. It was Strathaivron--and you."

"I, Mr. Moore?"

And now he had to go on; he had taken his fate in his hands; there was some kind of despairing recklessness in his brain; his breath came and went quickly and painfully as he spoke.

"Well, I must tell you now, whatever comes of it. I must tell you the truth--you may think it madness--I cannot help that. What I want to do is to give up the theatre altogether. I want to let all that go, with a past never to be regretted--never to be recalled. I want to make for myself a new future--if you will share it with me."

"Mr. Moore!"

Their eyes met; hers frightened, his eagerly and tremblingly expectant.

"There, now you know the truth. Will you say but one word? Honnor--may I hope?"

He sought to take her hand, but she shrank back a step--not in anger, but apparently quite stupefied.

"Oh, no, no, Mr. Moore," she said, piteously. "What have I done? How could I imagine you were thinking of any such thing? And--and on my account--that you should dream of making such a sacrifice--giving up your reputation and your position--"

Where was his acting now?--where the pa.s.sionate appeal he would have made on the stage? He stood stock-still--his eyes bent earnestly on hers--and he spoke slowly:

"It is no sacrifice. It is nothing. I wish for another life--but with you--with you. Have you one word of hope to give me?"

He saw his answer already.

"I cannot--I cannot," she said, with downcast eyes, and obviously in such deep distress that his heart smote him.

"It is enough," said he. "I--I was a fool to deceive myself with such imaginings--that are far beyond me. You will forgive me, Miss Honnor; I did not wish to cause you any pain; why, what harm is done except that I have been too presumptuous and too frank--and you will forget that. Tell me you forgive me!"

He held out his hand; she took it for a moment; and for another moment he held hers in a firm grasp.

"If I could tell you," he said, in a low voice, "what I thought of you--what every one thinks of you--you might perhaps understand why I have dared to speak."

She withdrew her hand quickly; her mother was at the door. When Lady Cunyngham came into the room, her daughter was apparently turning over those photographs and engravings. Lionel went forward to the elder lady to pay his respects; there was a brief conversation, introduced by Miss Honnor, about Mr. Moore's generous proposal to sing at any charitable concert they might be interested in; and then, as soon as he could, Lionel said good-bye, left the house, and pa.s.sed into the outer world--where the dusk of the December afternoon was coming down over the far wastes of sea.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AN INVOCATION.

All his vague, wild, impracticable hopes and schemes had suddenly received their death-blow; but there was nothing worse than that; he himself (as he imagined) had been dealt no desperate wound. For one thing, flattered and petted as this young man had been, he was neither unreasoning nor vain; that a woman should have refused to marry him did not seem to him a monstrous thing; she was surely within her right in saying no; while, on the other hand, he was neither going to die of chagrin nor yet to plan a melodramatic revenge. But the truth was that he had never been pa.s.sionately in love with Honnor Cunyngham. Pa.s.sionate love he did not much believe in; he a.s.sociated it with lime-light and crowded audiences and the odor of gas. Indeed, it might almost be said that he had been in love not so much with Honnor Cunyngham as with the condition of life which she represented. He had grown restless and dissatisfied with his present state; he had been imagining for himself another sort of existence--but always with her as the central figure of those fancied realms; he had been dreaming dreams--of which she had invariably formed part. And now he had been awakened (somewhat abruptly, perhaps, but that may have been his own fault); and there was nothing for it but to summon his common-sense to his aid, and to a.s.sure himself that Honnor Cunyngham, at least, was not to blame.

And yet sometimes, in spite of himself, as he smoked a final cigarette at midnight in those rooms in Piccadilly, a trace of bitterness would come into his reveries.

"I have been taught my place, that's all," he would say to himself.

"Maurice was right--I had forgotten my catechism. I wanted to play the gardener's son, or Mordaunt to Lady Mabel; and I can't write poetry, and I'm not in the House of Commons. I suppose my head was a little bewildered by the kindness and condescension of those excellent people.

They are glad to welcome you into their rooms--you are a sort of curiosity--you sing for them--they're very civil for an hour or two--but you must remember to leave before the footmen proceed to shut the hall-door. Well, what's to be done? Am I to rush away to the wars, and come back a field-marshal? Am I to make myself so obnoxious in Parliament that the n.o.ble earl will give me his daughter in order to shut my mouth? Oh, no; they simplify matters nowadays; 'as you were' is the word of command; go back to the theatre; paint your face and put on your finery; play the fool along with the rest of the comic people, and we'll come and look at you from the stalls; and if you will marry, why, then, keep in your own sphere, and marry Kate Burgoyne!"

For now--when he was peevish and discontented and restless, or even sick at heart, he hardly knew why--there was no Nina to solace and soothe him with her gentle companionship, her wise counsel, her bright and cheerful and wayward good-humor. Apparently he had as many friends and acquaintances as before, and yet he was haunted by a curious sense of solitude. Of a morning he would go out for a stroll along the familiar thoroughfares--Bond Street, Conduit Street, Regent Street, where he knew all the shops at which Nina used to linger for a moment, to glance at a picture or a bonnet--and these seemed altogether different now. He could not have imagined he should have missed Nina so much. Instead of dining in his rooms at five o'clock and thereafter walking down to Sloane Street to have a cup of tea with Nina and Mlle. Girond before they all three set out for the theatre, he spent most of his afternoons at the Garden Club, where there was a good deal of the game of poker being played by young gentlemen in the up-stairs rooms. And sometimes he returned thither after the performance, seeking anew the distraction of card-playing and betting, until he became notorious as the fiercest plunger in the place. n.o.body could "bluff" Lionel Moore; he would "call"

his opponent if he himself had nothing better than a pair of twos; and many a solid handful of sovereigns he had to pay for that privilege of gazing.

Day after day went by, and still there was no word of Nina; at times he was visited by sudden sharp misgivings that terrified him. The heading of a paragraph in a newspaper would startle his eyes; and then he would breathe again when he found that this poor wretch who had grown weary of the world was unknown to him. Every evening, when Mlle. Girond came into the theatre, she was met by the same anxious, wondering question; and her reply was invariably the same.

"Don't you think it very strange?" he asked of Estelle. "Nina said she would write to you or send you a message--I suppose as soon as all her plans were made. I hope nothing has happened to her," he added, as a kind of timid expression of his own darker self-questionings.

"Something--something terrible?" said Estelle. "Ah, no. We should hear.

No; Nina will make sure we cannot reach her--that she is not to be seen by you or me--then perhaps I have a message. Oh, she is very proud; she will make sure; the pain in her heart, she will hide it and hide it--until some time goes, and she can hold up her head, with a brave face. Poor Nina!--she will suffer--for she will not speak, no, not to any one."