The Masquerader Part 29

She saw the glance. "Ever so much quicker," she insinuated; and, smiling again, she stepped forward from the door of the shop. After a second's indecision Chilcote followed her.

The waiting car had three seats--one in front for the chauffeur, two vis-a-vis at the back, offering pleasant possibilities of a tete-a-tete.

"The Park--and drive slowly," Lillian ordered, as she stepped inside, motioning Chilcote to the seat opposite.

They moved up Bond Street smoothly and rapidly. Lillian was absorbed in the pa.s.sing traffic until the Marble Arch was reached; then, as they glided through the big gates, she looked across at her companion. He had turned up the collar of his coat, though the wind was scarcely perceptible, and buried, himself in it to the ears.

"It is extraordinary!" she exclaimed, suddenly, as her eyes rested on his face. It was seldom that she felt drawn to exclamation. She was usually too indolent to show surprise. But now the feeling was called forth before she was aware.

Chilcote looked up. "What's extraordinary?" he said, sensitively.

She leaned forward for an instant and touched his hand.

"Bear!" she said, teasingly. "Did I rub your fur the wrong way?" Then, seeing his expression, she tactfully changed her tone. "I'll explain. It was the same thing that struck me the night of Blanche's party--when you looked at me over Leonard Kaine's head. You remember?" She glanced away from him across the Park to where the gra.s.s was already showing greener.

Chilcote felt ill at ease. Again he put his hand to his coat collar.

"Oh yes," he said, hastily--"yes." He wished now that he had questioned Loder more closely on the proceedings of that party. It seemed to him, on looking back, that Loder had mentioned nothing on the day of their last exchange but the political complications that absorbed his mind.

"I couldn't explain then," Lillian went on. "I couldn't explain before a crowd of people that it wasn't your dark head showing over Leonard's red one that surprised me, but the most wonderful, the most extraordinary likeness--" She paused.

The car was moving slower; there was a delight in the easy motion through the fresh, early air. But Chilcote's uneasiness had been aroused. He no longer felt soothed.

"What likeness?" he asked, sharply.

She turned to him easily. "Oh, a likeness I have noticed before," she said. "A likeness that always seemed strange, but that suddenly became incredible at Blanche's party."

He moved quickly. "Likenesses are an illusion," he said, "a mere imagination of the brain!" His manner was short; his annoyance seemingly out of all proportion to its cause. Lillian looked at him afresh in slightly interested surprise.

"Yet not so very long ago, you yourself--" she began.

"Nonsense!" he broke in. "I've always denied likenesses. Such things don't really exist. Likeness-seeing is purely an individual matter--a preconception." He spoke fast; he was uneasy under the cool scrutiny of her green eyes. And with a sharp attempt at self-control and rea.s.surance he altered his voice. "After all, we're being very stupid!" he exclaimed. "We're worrying over something that doesn't exist."

Lillian was still lazily interested. To her own belief, she had seen Chilcote last on the night of her sister's reception. Then she had been too preoccupied to notice either his manner or his health, though superficially it had lingered in her mind that he had seemed unusually reliant, unusually well on that night. A remembrance of the impression came to her now as she studied his face, upon which imperceptibly and yet relentlessly his vice was setting its mark--in the dull restlessness of eye, the unhealthy sallowness of skin.

Some shred of her thought, some suggestion of the comparison running through her mind, must have shown in her face, for Chilcote altered his position with a touch of uneasiness. He glanced away across the long sweep of tan-covered drive stretching between the trees; then he glanced furtively back.

"By-the-way," he said, quickly, "you wanted me for something?" The memory of her earlier suggestion came as a sudden boon.

She lifted her m.u.f.f again and smelled her roses thoughtfully. "Oh, it was nothing, really," she said. "You sarcastic people give very shrewd suggestions sometimes, and I've been rather wanting a suggestion on an--an adventure that I've had." She looked down at her flowers with a charmingly attentive air.

But Chilcote's restlessness had increased. Looking up, she suddenly caught the expression, and her own face changed.

"My dear Jack," she said, softly, "what a bore I am! Let's forget tedious things--and enjoy ourselves." She leaned towards him caressingly with an air of concern and reproach.

The action was not without effect. Her soothing voice, her smile, her almost affectionate gesture, each carried weight. With a swift return of a.s.surance he responded to her tone.

"Right!" he said. "Right! We will enjoy ourselves!" He laughed quickly, and again with a conscious movement lifted his hand to his m.u.f.fler.

"Then we'll postpone the advice?" Lillian laughed, too.

"Yes. Right! We'll postpone it." The word pleased him and he caught at it. "We won't bother about it now, but we won't shelve it altogether.

We'll postpone it."

"Exactly." She settled herself more comfortably. "You'll dine with me one night--and we can talk it out then. I see so little of you nowadays," she added, in a lower voice.

"My dear girl, you're unfair!" Chilcote's spirits had risen; he spoke rapidly, almost pleasantly. "It isn't I who keep away--it's the stupid affairs of the world that keep me. I'd be with you every hour of the twelve if I had my way."

She looked up at the bare trees. Her expression was a delightful mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt, satisfaction, and scepticism. "Then you will dine?" she said at last.

"Certainly." His reaction to high spirits carried him forward.

"How nice! Shall we fix a day?"

"A day? Yes. Yes--if you like." He hesitated for an instant, then again the impulse of the previous moment dominated his other feeling. "Yes,"

he said, quickly. "Yes. After all, why not fix it now?" With a sudden inclination towards amiability he opened his overcoat, thrust his hand into an inner pocket, and drew out his engagement-book--the same long, narrow book fitted with two pencils that Loder had scanned so interestedly on his first morning at Grosvenor Square. He opened it, turning the pages rapidly. "What day shall it be? Thursday's full--and Friday--and Sat.u.r.day. What a bore!" He still talked fast.

Lillian leaned across. "What a sweet book!" she said. "But why the blue crosses?" She touched one of the pages with her gloved finger.

Chilcote jerked the book, then laughed with a touch of embarra.s.sment.

"Oh, the crosses? Merely to remind me that certain 'appointments must be kept. You know my beastly memory! But what about the day? Shall we fix the day?" His voice was in control, but mentally her trivial question had disturbed and jarred him. "What day shall we say?" he repeated.

"Monday in next week?"

Lillian glanced up with a faint exclamation of disappointment. "How horribly faraway!" She spoke with engaging petulance, and, leaning forward afresh, drew the book from Chilcote's hand. "What about to-morrow?" she exclaimed, turning back a page. "Why not to-morrow? I knew I saw a blank s.p.a.ce."

"To-morrow! Oh, I--I--" He stopped.

"Jack!" Her voice dropped. It was true that she desired Chilcote's opinion on her adventure, for Chilcote's opinion on men and manners had a certain bitter shrewdness; but the exercise of her own power added a point to the desire. If the matter had ended with the gain or loss of a tete-a-tete with him, it is probable that, whatever its utility, she would not have pressed it, but the underlying motive was the stronger.

Chilcote had been a satellite for years, and it was unpleasant that any satellite should drop away into s.p.a.ce.

"Jack!" she said again, in a lower and still more effective tone; and, lifting her m.u.f.f, she buried her face in her flowers. "I suppose I shall have to dine and go to a music-hall with Leonard--or stay at home by myself," she murmured, looking out across the trees.

Again Chilcote glanced over the long, tan-strewn ride. They had made the full circuit of the park.

"It's tiresome being by one's self," she murmured.

For a while he was irresponsive, then slowly his eyes returned to her face. He watched her for a second, and, leaning quickly towards her, he took his book and scribbled something in the vacant s.p.a.ce.

She watched him interestedly; her face lighted up, and she laid aside her m.u.f.f.

"Dear Jack!" she said. "How very sweet of you!"

Then, as he held the book towards her, her face fell. "Dine 33 Cadogan Gardens, 8 o'c. Talk with L.," she read. "Why, you've forgotten the essential thing!"

He looked up. "The essential thing?"

She smiled. "The blue cross," she said. "Isn't it worth even a little one?"