The Gambler Part 75

"Perhaps! The first dance!" She stood up, and joining the rest of the company, moved down the room.

As she gained the door, Nance ran to her.

"Clo, darling! Can't I stay with you?"

Clodagh smiled down into the eager upturned face.

"Not this morning. I have a business letter to write."

"Then I _must_ go?" Nance's face fell.

"Must, darling."

"But, Clo, you'll think of me--and love me--all the time you're writing the horrid thing?"

Clodagh laughed; then all at once her face looked grave.

"Dearest," she said suddenly, "you don't know how much!" And without explaining her words, or waiting for Nance to speak again, she pa.s.sed quickly across the hall and up the stairs.

Four different times Clodagh began her letter to Barnard. Sitting by the writing-table close to the open window of her bedroom, she watched the various members of the house party depart on their different ways; but the quieter and more deserted the house became, the more impossible it seemed to her to accomplish the task she had in hand. At last, with a gesture of despair, she tore up the half-written letters that lay strewn about her; and, rising from the table with a sigh of vexation, left the room, closing the door softly.

With a frown of unhappiness and perplexity still upon her forehead, she descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and pa.s.sing round the back of the house, made her way to the rose garden.

The rose garden at Tuffnell was always a place of beauty; but in the month of July it was a paradise of scent and colour. Down its centre ran a long strip of close-cut lawn, flanked on either side by stone seats and stone nymphs and satyrs, brought from an old Italian garden; on the high wall, that preserved to the place an absolute seclusion, a dozen peac.o.c.ks sunned themselves gorgeously; while over the entire enclosure grew--and climbed--and drooped--roses; roses of every shade and of every size; roses that filled the air with a warm scent that seemed at once to mingle with and to hold the summer sun.

She paused for an instant upon entering this enchanted garden, and drew a deep breath of involuntary delight; then, walking slowly, as though haste might desecrate such beauty, she pa.s.sed down the long smooth lawn that formed an alley of greenness amid the pink and crimson of the flowers.

Pausing at the farther end, she stood, soothed by the sights and scents about her, until suddenly a harsh, disturbed cry from one of the peac.o.c.ks broke the spell. She turned sharply, and saw Deerehurst standing close behind her.

"I saw you from my dressing-room window," he said, in answer to her look of surprise. "Was it very presumptuous of me to follow you?"

The cold, familiar voice banished the thought of the roses. Her vexations and perplexities came back upon her abruptly, causing her face to cloud over.

"No!" she said hastily--"no! I--I think I am glad to see you. I am in a hopeless mood to-day. Things won't go right!"

He took her hand and bent over it, with even more than his usual deference, although his cold eyes shot a swift glance at her distressed face.

"But you must not say that," he said softly. "Things can always be compelled to go right."

She shook her head despondently.

"Not for me."

He freed her hand gently, and pointed to one of the stone seats that stood under the shadow of the rose bushes.

"Shall we sit down?" he said. "There is a great deal of repose to be found in this garden of Lady Diana's. She had it copied many years ago from my rose garden at Ambleigh."

Clodagh looked up at him, as they moved together across the gra.s.s.

"Indeed!" she said--"from your rose garden?"

"Yes; she and Tuffnell stayed with me at Ambleigh shortly after they were married--when my sister was alive. And Lady Diana fell in love with my rose garden. I remember I sent a couple of my gardeners down here to plant this one for her. It is an exact reproduction, on a smaller scale."

There was silence while they seated themselves; then Clodagh, looking meditatively in front of her at the evil face of one of the stone satyrs, spoke suddenly and impulsively.

"I envy you!" she said.

"You envy me?" There was a curious, almost an eager tone in Deerehurst's voice; but she was too preoccupied to hear it.

"All people are to be envied who have power--and freedom. I get so tired of myself sometimes--so rebellious against myself! I am always doing the things I should not do, and failing to do the things I should. I am hopeless!"

For a s.p.a.ce he made no attempt to break in upon her mood; then, very quietly, he bent forward and looked up into her face.

"What is worrying you?" he asked in a whisper. "Confession really _is_ very good for the soul!"

For a moment she answered nothing; then, yielding to an impulse, she met his scrutinising eyes.

"Oh, it's only a letter that won't let itself be written--one of those abominable letters that one has to write. Talking of it does no good!"

"No good? I am not so sure of that. I believe in talking. Tell me about it!"

Clodagh laid her hand nervously on the arm of the seat.

"I have been stupid!" she said almost defiantly. "I have overstepped my allowance, and must ask Mr. Barnard to advance me some money. And--and I, somehow, hate to do it. Am I not a fool?" She laughed unsteadily, and turned to look at her companion; but he had drawn back into the shadow of the seat. "Oh, it's childish! Ridiculous! I am disgusted with myself!" Her glance again crossed the strip of green lawn to where the stone satyr stood.

Quite silently Deerehurst bent forward again.

"What is the amount?" he asked softly.

"A thousand pounds."

"And is Barnard such a very great friend?"

Clodagh started.

"No! Oh no! Why?" She turned quickly and looked at him.

"Because I wish to know why it should be Barnard."

There was a long silence, in which she felt her heart beat uncomfortably fast. A sudden surprise--a sudden confusion--filled her.

Then, through the confusion, she was conscious that Deerehurst was speaking again.

"Why should you think of Barnard?" he murmured. "Barnard is not a rich man. To advance you a thousand pounds may possibly inconvenience him; whereas a man who need not consider ways and means----"

Clodagh sat very still.

"Yes. But I think----"