The Fighting Chance Part 53

"Yes, once."

He looked at her sternly, his jaw squaring until his heavy under lip projected. "Within my definition of friendship, is he your friend?"

"You mean he--"

"No, I mean you! I can answer for him. How is it with you? Do you return what he gives--if there is really friendship between you? Or do you take what he offers, offering nothing in return?"

She had turned rather white under the direct impact of the questions.

The jarring repet.i.tion of his voice itself was like the dull echo of distant blows. Yet it never occurred to her to resent it, nor his att.i.tude, nor his self-a.s.sumed privilege. She did not care; she no longer cared what he said to her or thought about her; nor did she care that her mask had fallen at last. It was not what he was saying, but what her own heart repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her face. Not he, but she herself had become the pitiless attorney for the prosecution; not his voice, but the clamouring conscience within her demanded by what right she used the name of friendship to characterise the late relations between her and the man to whom she had denied herself.

Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless.

"Why don't you speak?" she said. "Yes, I have a right to know. I care for him as much as you do. Why don't you answer me? I tell you I care for him!"

"Do you?" he said in a dull voice. "Then help me out, if you can, for I don't know what to do; and if I did, I haven't the authority of friendship as my warrant. He is in New York. He did go to the country; and, at his home, the servants suppose he is still away. But he isn't; he is here, alone, and sick--sick of his old sickness. I saw him, and"--Plank rested his head on his hand, dropping his eyes--"and he didn't know me. I--I do not think he will remember that he met me, or that I spoke. And--I could do nothing, absolutely nothing. And I don't know where he is. He will go home after a while. I call--every day--to see--see what can be done. But if he were there I would not know what to do. When he does go home I won't know what to say--what to try to do.

And that is an answer to your question, Miss Landis. I give it, because you say you care for him as I do. Will you advise me what to do?--you, who are more ent.i.tled than I am to know the truth, because he has given you the friendship which he has as yet not accorded to me."

But Sylvia, dry-eyed, dry-lipped, could find no voice to answer; and after a little while they rose and moved through the fragrant gloom toward the sparkling lights beyond.

Her voice came back as they entered the brilliant rooms: "I should like to find Grace Ferrall," she said very distinctly. "Please keep the others off, Mr. Plank."

Her small hand on his arm lay with a weight out of all proportion to its size. Fair head averted, she no longer guided him with that impalpable control; it was he who had become the pilot now, and he steered his own way through the billowy ocean of silk and lace, master of the course he had set, heavily bland to the interrupter and the importunate from whom she turned a deaf ear and dumb lips, and lowered eyes that saw nothing.

Fleetwood had missed his dance with her, but she scarcely heard his eager complaints. Quarrier, coldly inquiring, confronted them; was pa.s.sed almost without recognition, and left behind, motionless, looking after them out of his narrowing, black-fringed eyes of a woman.

Then Ferrall came, and hearing his voice, she raised her colourless face.

"Will you take me home with you, Kemp, when you take Grace?" she asked.

"Of course. I don't know where Grace is. Are you in a hurry to go? It's only four o'clock."

They were at the entrance to the supper-room. Plank drew up a chair for her, and she sank down, dropping her elbows on the small table, and resting her face between her fingers.

"Pegged out, Sylvia?" exclaimed Ferrall incredulously. "You? What's the younger set coming to?" and he motioned a servant to fill her gla.s.s. But she pushed it aside with a shiver, and gave Plank a strange look which he scarcely understood at the moment.

"More caprices; all sorts of 'em on the programme," muttered Ferrall, looking down at her from where he stood beside Plank. "O tempora! O Sylvia!

Plank, would you mind hunting up my wife? I'll stay and see that this infant doesn't fall asleep."

But Sylvia shook her head, saying: "Please go, Kemp. I'm a little tired, that's all. When Grace is ready, I'll leave with her." And at her gesture Plank seated himself, while Ferrall, shrugging his square shoulders, sauntered off in quest of his wife, stopping a moment at a neighbouring table to speak to Agatha Caithness, who sat there with Captain Voucher, the gemmed collar on her slender throat a pale blaze of splendour.

Plank was hungry, and he said so in his direct fashion. Sylvia nodded, and exchanged a smile with Agatha, who turned at the sound of Plank's voice. For a while, as he ate and drank largely, she made the effort to keep up a desultory conversation, particularly when anybody to whom she owed an explanation hove darkly in sight on the horizon. But Plank's appet.i.te was in proportion to the generous lines on which nature had fashioned him, and she paid less and less attention to convention and a trifle more to the beauty of Agatha's jewels, until the silence at the small table in the corner remained unbroken except by the faint tinkle of silver and crystal and the bubbling hiss of a gla.s.s refilled.

Major Belwether, his white, fluffy, chop-whiskers brushed rabbit fashion, peeped in at the door, started to tiptoe out again, caught sight of them, and came trotting back, beaming rosy effusion. He leaned roguishly over the table, his moist eyes a-twinkle with suppressed mirth; then, bestowing a sprightly glance on Plank, which said very plainly, "I'm up to one of my irrepressible jokes again!" he held up a smooth, white, and over-manicured forefinger:

"I was in Tiffany's yesterday," he said, "and I saw a young man in there who didn't see me, and I peeped over his shoulder, and what do you think he was doing?"

She lifted her eyes a little wearily:

"I don't know," she said.

"I do," he chuckled. "He was choosing a collar of blue diamonds and aqua marines!--Te-he!--probably to wear himself!--Te-he! Or perhaps he was going to be married!--He-he-he!--next winter--ahem!--next November--Ha-ha! I don't know, I'm sure, what he meant to do with that collar. I only--"

Something in Sylvia's eyes stopped him, and, following their direction, he turned around to find Quarrier standing at his elbow, icy and expressionless.

"Oh," said the aged jester, a little disconcerted, "I'm caught talking out in church, I see! It was only a harmless little fun, Howard."

"Do you mean you saw me?" asked Quarrier, pale as a sheet. "You are in error. I have not been in Tiffany's in months."

Belwether, crestfallen under the white menace of Quarrier's face, nodded, and essayed a chuckle without success.

Sylvia, at first listless and uninterested, looked inquiringly from the major to Quarrier, surprised at the suppressed feeling exhibited over so trivial a gaucherie. If Quarrier had chosen a collar like Agatha's for her, what of it? But as he had not, on his own statement, what did it matter? Why should he look that way at the foolish major, to whose garrulous gossip he was accustomed, and whose inability to refrain from prying was notorious enough.

Turning disdainfully, she caught a glimpse of Plank's shocked and altered face. It relapsed instantly into the usual inert expression; and a queer, uncomfortable perplexity began to invade her. What had happened to stir up these three men? Of what importance was an indiscretion of an old gentleman whose fatuous vanity and consequent blunders everybody was familiar with? And, after all, Howard had not bought anything at Tiffany's; he said so himself.

But it was evident that Agatha had chanced on the collar that Belwether thought he saw somebody else examining.

She turned, and looked at the dead-white neck of the girl. The collar was wonderful--a miracle of pale fire. And Sylvia, musing, let her thoughts run on, dreamy eyes brooding. She was glad that Agatha's means permitted her now to have such things. It had been understood, for some years, that the Caithness fortune was in rather an alarming condition.

Howard had been able recently to do a favour or two for old Peter Caithness. She had heard the major bragging about it. Evidently Mr.

Caithness must have improved the chance, if he was able to present such gems to his daughter. And now somebody would marry her; perhaps Captain Voucher; perhaps even Alderdene; perhaps, as rumour had it now and then, Plank might venture into the arena.

Poor Plank! More of a man than people understood. She understood. She--

And her thoughts swung back like the returning tide to Siward, and her heart began heavily again, and the slightly faint sensation returned.

She pa.s.sed her ungloved, unsteady fingers across her eyelids and forehead, looking up and around. The major and Howard had disappeared; Plank, beside her, sat staring stupidly into his empty wine-gla.s.s.

"Isn't Mrs. Ferrall coming?" she said wearily.

Plank gathered his c.u.mbersome bulk and stood up, trying to see through the entrance into the ball-room. After a moment he said: "They're in there, talking to Marion. It's a good chance to make our adieux."

As they pa.s.sed out of the supper-room Sylvia paused behind Agatha's chair and bent over her. "The collar is beautiful," she said, "and so are you, Agatha"; and with a little impulsive caress for the jewels she pa.s.sed on, unconscious of the delicate flush that spread from Agatha's shoulders to her hair. And Agatha, turning, encountered only the stupid gaze of Plank, moving ponderously past on Sylvia's heels.

"If you'll find Leila, I'm ready at any time," she said carelessly, and resumed her tete-a-tete with Voucher, who had plainly been annoyed at the interruption.

Plank went on, a new trouble dawning on his thickening mental horizon.

He had completely forgotten Leila. Even with all the demands made upon him; even with all the time he had given to those whose use of him he understood, how could he have forgotten Leila and the recent scene between them, and the new att.i.tude and new relations with her that he must so carefully consider and ponder over before he presented himself at the house of Mortimer again!

Ferrall and his wife and Sylvia were making their adieux to Marion and her mother when he came up; and he, too, took that opportunity.

Later, on his quest for Leila, Sylvia, pa.s.sing through the great hall, shrouded in silk and ermine, turned to offer him her hand, saying in a low voice: "I am at home to you; do you understand? Always," she added nervously.

He looked after her with an unconscious sigh, unaware that anything in himself had claimed her respect. And after a moment he swung on his broad heels to continue his search for Mrs. Mortimer.

CHAPTER X THE SEAMY SIDE

About four o'clock on the following afternoon Mrs. Mortimer's maid, who had almost finished drying and dressing her mistress' hair, was called to the door by a persistent knocking, which at first she had been bidden to disregard.

It was Mortimer's man, desiring to know whether Mrs. Mortimer could receive Mr. Mortimer at once on matters of importance.