The Knave of Diamonds Part 35

Upstairs she encountered the doctor's wife patting her hair before a mirror. She turned at Anne's entrance.

"Why, Lady Carfax! This is indeed a pleasure. I am so glad to see you here."

There was genuine pleasure in her voice, and Anne remembered with a smile that Mrs. Randal liked her.

They chatted as she removed her wraps, and finally descended together, Mrs. Randal turning at the head of the stairs to whisper: "There's that horrid old gossip, Major Shirley. I know he will fall to my lot. He always does. How shall I direct the conversation into safe channels?"

Anne could only shake her head. She knew that Mrs. Randal was not celebrated for discretion.

Entering the drawing-room, they found Major Shirley with his wife and daughter, Ralph and Dot Waring, and the doctor, a.s.sembled with their host and hostess.

Mrs. Damer glanced at the clock after greeting them. "The Errols are late."

Anne chanced to be speaking to Dot at the moment, and the girl's magic change of countenance called her attention to the words. She wondered if her own face changed, and became uneasily aware of a sudden quickening of the heart. Quietly she pa.s.sed on to speak to the Shirleys. The major looked her up and down briefly and offensively as his manner was, and she escaped from his vicinity as speedily as possible. His wife, a powdered, elderly lady, sought to detain her, but after a few moments Anne very gently detached herself, accepting the seat which young Ralph Waring eagerly offered her.

There followed a somewhat lengthy and by no means easy pause.

Conversation was spasmodic. Everyone was listening for the arrival of the last guests, and when after some minutes there came the rush of wheels under the window and the loud hoot of a motor everyone jumped. Mrs.

Damer, who had talked hard through the silences, made no comment but looked unutterably relieved.

Dot openly and eagerly watched the door, and Anne with a conscious effort suppressed an inclination to do likewise.

When it opened she looked up quite naturally, and surely no one suspected the wild leaping of her heart.

Nap entered--sleek, trim, complacent; followed by Bertie, whose brown face looked unmistakably sullen.

"Sorry we are late," drawled Nap, "Bertie will make our excuses."

But Bertie said nothing, and it was left to Mrs. Damer to step into the breach.

She did so quite gallantly, if somewhat clumsily. "I am very pleased to see you, Nap; but, you know, it was your brother whom we expected. I didn't so much as know that you were at home."

"Oh, quite so," smiled Nap. "Don't apologise--please!" He bent slightly over her hand. "So good of you not to mind the exchange. I know I am a poor subst.i.tute. But my brother is entertaining an old friend who has arrived unexpectedly, so I persuaded him to send me in his place. He charged me with all manner of excuses and apologies, which I have not delivered since I know them to be unnecessary."

Mrs. Damer found it impossible not to smile at his calm effrontery, even though she knew Major Shirley to be frowning behind her back.

"When did you return?" she asked. "Someone said you were in the States."

"I was," said Nap. "I returned half an hour ago; hence our late arrival, for which I humbly beg to apologise, and to entreat you not to blame Bertie, who, as you perceive, is still speechless with suspense."

"Oh, you Americans!" laughed Mrs. Damer. "You are never at a loss. Do let us go in to dinner. No, Nap! The doctor will take me. Will you take Miss Waring? But you won't be able to sit together. You have disarranged all my plans, so I shall treat you as of no importance."

"Miss Waring won't quarrel with either you or me on that account,"

commented Nap, as he offered his arm to the rector's daughter with ironical courtesy. "Come along, Miss Waring! Shut your eyes and bolt me.

It will soon be over."

Dot was young enough to make a face at him, but the hard stare with which he countered it reduced her almost instantly to confusion. Whereupon he transferred his attention and looked at her no more.

But compensation was in store for her, for at the dinner-table she found herself placed between Bertie and the doctor, a pleasing situation in which she speedily recovered her spirits, since the doctor talked to his hostess, and Bertie's partner, Mrs. Shirley, strenuously occupied the attention of her host, who was seated on her other side.

Major Shirley fell as usual to Mrs. Randal, over which circ.u.mstance Anne, catching a tragic glance from the latter, failed somewhat conspicuously to repress a smile.

"Yes, it's mighty funny, isn't it?" said Nap, and with a sharp start she discovered that he was seated upon her right.

"I--didn't see you," she faltered.

"No?" he said coolly. "Well, it's all right. I was told to sit here--obviously decreed by the G.o.ds. You'll think me uncanny if I tell you that it was just this that I came for."

"You are uncanny," she said.

He made her a brief bow. It seemed to her that a mocking spirit gleamed in his eyes. She had never felt less confident of him, less at her ease with him, than at that moment. She felt as if in some subtle fashion, wholly beyond her comprehension, he were playing some deep-laid game, as if he were weaving some intricate web too secret and too intangible to be understood or grappled with. Upon one point only was she quite clear. He would suffer no reference to their last meeting. Whatever the effect of that terrible punishment upon him, he did not choose that she should see it. She had seen him in the utmost extremity of his humiliation, but she should never see the scars that were left.

This much of his att.i.tude she could understand, and understanding could pardon that part which baffled her. But she could not feel at her ease.

"And so you are afraid," said Nap. "That's a new thing for you."

She glanced round the table. In the general hubbub of talk they were as isolated as though they were actually alone together.

"No," she said. "Why should I be afraid? But--I feel as if I am talking to--a stranger."

"Perhaps you are," said Nap.

He uttered a laugh she could not fathom, and then with a certain recklessness: "Permit me to present to your majesty," he said, "the Knave of Diamonds!"

There was that in his tone that hurt her vaguely, little as she understood it. She smiled with a hint of wistfulness.

"Surely I have met him before!" she said.

"Without knowing him," said Nap.

"No," she maintained. "I have known him for a long while now. I believe him to be my very good friend."

"What?" he said.

She glanced at him, half startled by the brief query; but instantly she looked away again with a curious, tingling sense of shock. For it was to her as though she had looked into the heart of a consuming fire.

"Aren't you rather behind the times?" he drawled. "That was--as you say--a long while ago."

The shock pa.s.sed, leaving her strangely giddy, as one on the edge of inconceivable depth. She could say no word in answer. She was utterly and hopelessly at a loss.

With scarcely a pause Nap turned to Violet Shirley, who was seated on his right, and plunged without preliminary into a gay flirtation to which all the world was at liberty to listen if it could not approve. Ralph Waring, thus deprived of his rightful partner, solaced himself with Mrs. Randal, who was always easy to please; and the major on her other side relapsed into bearish gloom.

It was with unspeakable relief that Anne rose at length from that dinner-table. She had a deep longing to escape altogether, to go back to the quiet Manor, where at least all was peace. He had hurt her more subtly than she could have deemed possible. Had his friendship really meant so much to her? Or was it only her pride that suffered to think he valued hers so lightly? It seemed that he was fickle then, fickle as everyone declared him to be. And yet in her heart she did not for a moment believe it. That single glimpse she had had, past the gibing devil in his eyes, deep into the man himself, had told her something different.

He hated her then, he hated her as the cause of his downfall. This seemed the more likely. And yet--and yet--did she really believe this either?

"Dear Lady Carfax, do play to us!" urged her hostess. "It will be such a treat to hear you."

She rose half-mechanically and went to the piano, struck a few chords and began to play, still so deep in her maze of conjecture that she hardly knew what she had chosen.