The Man with the Double Heart Part 28

"Why aren't you dancing, you young men?--Want some partners? Let's see your cards."

Thesiger stared at him with open disgust.

"No--er--thanks." He turned to his friend as the thick-set man bustled away downstairs, mopping his brow with a large silk handkerchief.

"Who's that bounder?"

"Sh ... I--it's the host."

"Good Lord!--that?" he frowned impatiently--"I can't see Susan--I've a great mind to cut it!"

"Better wait for supper," Merivale suggested. "Look here"--he added--"if you're not already booked we'll have it together."

"Righto!--and then you come on with me--for a game of 'Chemmy,' eh?--I feel in luck to-night."

"Well ... we'll see. How's Mrs. Merrod?" His dark eyes twinkled as he watched Thesiger's face.

"The fair Fantine?--oh--goin' pretty strong ... How are you, McTaggart----?" He broke off to greet a couple approaching.

The man nodded back.

"Hullo, Archie?--d'you know Miss Cadell?"

Cydonia was introduced, dazzling in white, her brown eyes glowing with suppressed excitement.

"Can't you spare him a dance? He's an old pal of mine?" McTaggart asked the girl with a subtle air of possession.

Cydonia smiled mischievously.

"I _might_ give him that extra I half promised you..."

"I'll see that you don't!" said her partner aggressively.

"Rather!" said Thesiger, entering into the sport. "Which is it, Miss Cadell?--the first, I hope?"

Cydonia glanced from one man's face to the other, unusually animated, conscious of her power.

"If Peter lets me off--it's the second supper dance."

"That's all right." McTaggart laughed--"You're supping with me--you seem to forget that!"

"Greedy brute!" Thesiger wrote it down with ostentatious care. "I'll come and look for you. In the supper-room!"

The music ceased and a gay crowd pa.s.sed through the narrow opening dividing the trio.

"Upstairs, Cydonia." McTaggart lowered his voice--"and I'm not going to be cheated--even by Archie. Here--I'll lead the way----" he forged ahead, pa.s.sing the couples preceding them. They reached the second landing, then up the third flight. Here seats were arranged in isolated pairs.

"Where does that lead to?" McTaggart, as he spoke, pointed to a narrow pa.s.sage blocked by palms.

"The servants' staircase." Cydonia paused, but her companion deliberately drew the plants aside, holding back the leaves for her to pa.s.s.

"Come along, quick!" She gave him a glance, then obeyed with a sudden giggle.

"I say--this is fine!" He continued to explore, mounting the twisted dingy stairs.

"Let's go up and sit on the top." A faint glimmering light showed him the way. "Now--here we are--all to ourselves!"

Cydonia, a little scared by her own sense of daring, settled herself, her dress drawn about her, her little feet in their silver shoes shimmering beyond the dead-white brocade.

"It's rather narrow..." she suggested; then blushed as McTaggart, unabashed, took the step below.

He looked up into the beautiful face, still faintly flushed, transparent as a sh.e.l.l: into brown eyes like some clear woodland pool, where the sunshine through the trees cast golden gleams. His hand stole across and captured the girl's with the pretence of playing with her fan.

"Cydonia...!" The word was music in his ears. "How the name suits you--you lovely child!"

She drew back a little against the further wall.

"No--don't move--Cydonia--are you happy?" He slipped his right arm between her shoulders and the stairs. "There's a cushion for you--isn't that better?"

But Cydonia protested, sitting bolt upright. "No--Peter--don't. I'd really ... rather ... not."

"Why?--there's no one here. Can't you trust me, sweet?"

For McTaggart was drifting on the tide of his desire. He knew, too, it was part of his own fixed plan; no mere folly due to the place and hour.

Fantine's treachery had served to accentuate, by contrast, the value of his other love. Her girlhood, her purity, her quiescent charm stood out like snow against that dark background.

This night should decide it. No more would he stand, tossed by every impulse, with every change of mood. He would anchor in the haven of Cydonia's love, safe from the storms of life without.

Marriage, he thought, with a young man's confidence, would be the "settling down" of body and mind. He held that curious faith in established inst.i.tutions which is the mainspring of British orthodoxy.

A duet of words intoned in a Church was to conquer his temperament from that moment until death. Faithful, he swore, he would be to her, by these holy vows, publicly pledged; and, the miracle accomplished, his hot blood should turn into the quiet circulation of a saint.

Love should work the charm and pa.s.sion complete it. He thrust far from him its shadow, satiety; and that still greater pitfall for those who wed in haste, a dissimilarity in habit and thought.

So now as he lay, stretched on the stairs, so near to the fragrance of the girl's golden youth, drinking in the beauty of rounded arms and neck, and the shy, tender curve of her childish mouth, he felt that life held no deeper desire than to know her his until Death should part.

"Peter ... I don't think we ought to be here." This wise remark came a trifle late. For the faint smile with which she mitigated her sentence revealed for a second her white even teeth, and the parted lips and famous dimple completed the strain on McTaggart's control.

"Don't you, my darling?" His face was close to hers, his blue eyes, dilated, pleaded for him.

"Peter ... no!" She stiffened in his arms--then, with a little sigh, her lips met his, and clung...

"Well!--I'll be d.a.m.ned!" A harsh angry voice tore them apart, startled and bewildered.

Ebenezer Cadell, with apoplectic face, was glaring from below at the absorbed pair. The next moment heavy feet shook the stairs; the old man was on them--a fiery retribution.