The Gold of Chickaree Part 75

'But Dane,' with an uneasy little laugh, 'I really think you are to blame, to allow this little lady?so very young a lady as she is?to run about alone at night in this way. I have really been anxious. I thought you would be a better guardian, when you had the keys once safe.'

'Will you have some salad, Prudentia?'

'Salad??O no, my dear! I think it is very unwholesome.'

'Take some ice.'?

A turn, or at least a check, was given to the conversation. Mrs.

Coles could not refuse the ice. Primrose would eat no supper, and was evidently longing to get her sister away. Rollo cut for Hazel a slice of game.

'But Dane,' said Mrs. Coles presently, 'don't you think it is very imprudent to eat such heavy things late at night? Coffee and salad, and game? This ice is delicious.'

'So is the salad,' said Dane. 'Will you have a bit of the pheasant, Prudentia?'

'My dear! no. I don't see how you reconcile it with your new principles, either, to have such suppers.'

Rollo's eye had a flash of laughter in it as it went to Wych Hazel.

He asked gravely, 'Why not?'

'Mr. Rollo and I have agreed about partridges,'?said Hazel, in whom also fun was beginning to stir, though her eyes kept a far-off look now and then.

'Agreed about partridges!' repeated Mrs. Coles.

'Yes,' said Dane. 'You had better take some, Prudentia. Rosy,?a little bit with some bread would not hurt you.'

'But the expense, Dane!'

'Yes. What about it?'

'The expense must be fearful of such a supper?in such a house as this.'

'A man who wants his horse to do him good service never asks about the price of oats.'

'Dane!' said Mrs. Coles laughing and bridling, 'do you mean to compare your wife to your horse?'

Rollo was quite silent, long enough to have the silence marked.

And when he spoke, it was not to Mrs. Coles, neither did he honour her by so much as a look, during the rest of her stay in the room. Primrose made the stay as short as she could, and Mrs.

Coles who felt that she had lost her footing and did not know how to regain it, suffered herself to be carried away. But while Primrose got a kiss, she was dismissed by her host with a very ceremonious reverence. He had opened the door for the two and closed it behind them. Coming back he bent down to touch his lips to Wych Hazel's cheek.

'If you have any remarks to make, make them!' he said. 'I am defenceless, and at your mercy.'

But for once Wych Hazel was in a region of air quite beyond Mrs.

Coles. She looked up at him wistfully.

'I do not understand,' she said, 'how you ever came to care about me! It always was a puzzle,?and never so much as to-night.' The brown eyes were strangely soft and luminous and humble.

'How is that?' said he quietly, taking his former place beside her and making suggestions of addition to her supper. But Hazel laid down her fork, giving her plate a little push, in the fashion of old times.

'I have been looking into depths,' she said,?'abysses. I think I was never really near them, but I might have seemed so.'

'What sort of abysses? And in the mean time, take some ice?Mrs.

Coles was correct in one thing she said.'

'Dane,' Hazel said abstractedly, 'do you think you could be a success where I have proved a failure?'

'Where have you proved a failure?'

Hazel neglected her ice and leaned back in her chair.

'I used to think I could do things,' she said. 'And I have spent this whole afternoon and evening to no sort of purpose.'

'It is instructive, to learn sometimes that one cannot do things'?

said Dane. I suppose he had a little curiosity, but not much, for he knew he should hear what there was to hear; and he was thinking much more of Hazel than of what she had or had not failed to do.

So he spoke in a rather careless amused tone.

'Very!' Hazel answered.?'Dane, in buying up a man, is it more skilful to set a price?or to let him name it himself?'

'If you want to buy me,?I should say, let me set my own price.'

'Thank you. Even my extravagance does not desire such waste. But I want to buy off that nephew of Mme. Lasalle's. And?being worth nothing?how much is he worth? I believe I ought to have offered a definite sum,' she went on, half to herself.

Dane roused up fully now, and demanded to know what she was talking about?

'He is going to Lisbon,' said Hazel, too engrossed to be very methodical in her details. 'And Josephine Charteris means to go with him. I can do nothing at all with _her_?and I _must_ do something with him.'

'Not with Stuart Nightingale?if that is what you mean.'

'I must.'

'I can find a subst.i.tute for that "must." What do you want to do, Wych?'

'Put them both under bonds. But I have tried, and failed.'

'You have tried Josephine? Do you say that she wants to go with him?'

'Says she _will_ go. Will not even take diamonds instead?and they were her price,' said Wych Hazel with sorrowful disgust. 'So then I tried him.'

'Tried _him!_ Have you seen Nightingale?'

'O yes. Annabella let him get her carriage and drive home with us.

_I_ would not,' said Wych Hazel with energy. 'Not if I had waited there all night.'

'Was he in the carriage with you?'

'Coming home,?yes. And after Annabella was set down, I tried him with everything I could think of,?or everything _he_ could, rather.'

'I am very curious to hear what arguments you made use of.' Dane bent a little to look at the speaker, with a face half amused and wholly intent. Wych Hazel laughed softly.