The Knave of Diamonds Part 19

"Oh, don't be cynical, Boney! It's so d.a.m.ned cheap! There! I've done swearing at you for the present. It's wonderful how you fellows bear with me. Find Hudson, will you? And then go and tell Lady Carfax that I am afraid I can't visit her this evening as I had hoped."

"Do you know she talks of leaving tomorrow?" said Nap.

"Yes, I know. Guess she is quite right to go."

"She's not fit for it," said Nap, in a fierce undertone. "It's madness. I told her so. But she wouldn't listen."

"She is the best judge," his brother said. "Anyway, she is in an intolerable position. We can't press her to prolong it. Besides--whatever he is--her husband has first right."

"Think so?" said Nap.

"It is so," Lucas a.s.serted quietly, "whether you admit it or not."

Nap did not dispute the point, but his jaw looked exceedingly uncompromising as he departed to find the valet.

When a little later he asked for admission to Anne's presence, however, his bitter mood seemed to have modified. He entered with the air of one well a.s.sured of his welcome.

"Are you in a mood for chess tonight?" he asked.

"Now, you're not to plague her, Nap," put in Mrs. Errol. "She isn't going to spend her last evening amusing you."

"Oh, please," protested Anne. "It is your son who has had all the amusing to do."

Nap smiled. "There's for you, alma mater!" he remarked as he sat down.

"Lady Carfax is much too forbearing to say anything else," retorted Mrs. Errol.

"Lady Carfax always tells the truth," said Nap, beginning to set the chess-board, "which is the exact reason why all her swains adore her."

"Well," said Mrs. Errol very deliberately, though without venom, "I guess that's about the last quality I should expect you to appreciate."

"Strange to say, it is actually the first just now," said Nap. "Are you going, alma mater? Don't let me drive you away!"

He rose, nevertheless, to open the door for her; and Mrs. Errol went, somewhat with the air of one complying with an unspoken desire.

Nap came softly back and resumed his task. "P'r'aps you will be good enough to refrain from referring to me again as the august lady's son,"

he said. "She doesn't like it."

"Why not?" said Anne in astonishment.

He glanced up at her as if contemplating something. Then, "You see, the benign mother is not over and above proud of me," he drawled. "If it were Bertie now--well, I guess even you will admit that Bertie is the flower of the flock."

His manner mystified her, but it was not her way to seek to probe mysteries. She smiled as she said, "I have yet to discover that you are so very despicable."

"You have yet to discover--many things," said Nap enigmatically. "Will you be pleased to make the first move?"

She did so silently. They had played together several times before. He had formed a habit of visiting her every evening, and though her skill at the game was far from great, it had been a welcome diversion from the constant anxiety that pressed so heavily upon her. Nap was an expert player, yet he seemed to enjoy the poor game which was all she had to offer. Perhaps he liked to feel her at his mercy. She strongly suspected that he often deliberately prolonged the contest though he seldom allowed her to beat him.

To-night, however, he seemed to be in a restless mood, and she soon saw that he was bent upon a swift victory. He made his moves with a quick dexterity that baffled her completely, and but a very few minutes elapsed before he uttered his customary warning.

"You would do well to beware."

"Which means that I am beaten, I suppose," she said, with a smile of resignation.

"You can save yourself if you like," he said, with his eyes on the board, "if you consider it worth while."

"I don't think I do," she answered. "The end will be the same."

His eyes flashed up at her. "You surrender unconditionally?"

She continued to smile despite the sadness of her face. "Absolutely. I am so accustomed to defeat that I am getting callous."

"You seem to have great confidence in my chivalry," he said, looking full at her.

"I have--every confidence, Mr. Errol," she answered gravely. "I think that you and your brother are the most chivalrous men I know."

His laugh had a ring of harshness. "Believe me, I am not accustomed to being ranked with the saints," he said. "How shall I get away from your halo? I warn you, it's a most awful misfit. You'll find it out presently, and make me suffer for your mistake."

"You haven't a very high opinion of my sense of justice," Anne said, with just a tinge of reproach in her gentle voice.

"No," he said recklessly. "None whatever. You are sure to forget who fashioned the halo. Women always do."

Anne was silent.

He leaned suddenly towards her, careless of the chessmen that rolled in all directions. "I haven't been living up to the halo to-day," he said, and there was that in his voice that touched her to quick pity. "I've been snapping and biting like a wild beast all day long. I've been in h.e.l.l myself, and I've made it h.e.l.l wherever I went."

"Oh, but why?" Half involuntarily she held out her hand to him as one who would a.s.sist a friend in deep waters.

He took it, held it closely, bowed his forehead upon it, and so sat tensely silent.

"Something is wrong. I wish I could help you," she said at last.

He lifted his head, met her eyes of grave compa.s.sion, and abruptly set her free.

"You have done what you could for me," he said. "You've made me hate my inferno. But you can't pull me out. You have"--she saw his teeth for a second though scarcely in a smile--"other fish to fry."

"Whatever I am doing, I shall not forget my friends, Nap," she said, with great earnestness.

"No," he returned, "you won't forget them. I shouldn't wonder if you prayed for them even. I am sure you are one of the faithful." There was more of suppressed misery than irony in his voice. "But is that likely to help when you don't so much as know what to pray for?"

He got up and moved away from her with that noiseless footfall that was so like the stealthy padding of a beast.

Anne lay and silently watched him. Her uncertainty regarding him had long since pa.s.sed away. Though she was far from understanding him, he had become an intimate friend, and she treated him as such. True, he was unlike any other man she had ever met, but that fact had ceased to embarra.s.s her. She accepted him as he was.

He came back at length and sat down, smiling at her, though somewhat grimly.

"You will pardon your poor jester," he said, "if he fails to make a joke on your last night. He could make jokes--plenty of them, but not of the sort that would please you."