The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 17

"A little music?" mused Gerard, knitting his brows and thrusting out his under lip, as the note dropped from his hand. "That means, of course, that young Halleck. It's something new for Eleanor to go in for music. But it's _her_ doing, of course. I suppose she really cares for the fellow. And yet what a pity--what a pity that she should throw herself away like that!" He sat gazing absently before him, his pen in his hand, while the work upon which he had been engaged when Mrs.

Bobby's note arrived--an article for a scientific magazine--remained without the finishing touches he had intended to bestow.

He had not seen Elizabeth since that morning in the Park.

He had carefully refrained from going where he might see her. He had denied himself, once for all, that unprofitable and mysterious pleasure of watching her across the ball-room, while he leaned inertly against the wall, or talked, in his weary way, to some woman to whom he felt himself indebted. No, thank Heaven, he had been warned in time; there was no danger of his being made a fool of a second time.

His mind wandered back across the gulf of years, to that other woman whom he had loved so desperately once, whose shadow still stood between him and the happiness which seemed, now and again, within his grasp. He thought of the mad infatuation, the bitter disillusion, the restless travelling to and fro, the final settling down into cynical indifference.... and then long afterwards, when the indifference had grown into a habit, and he dreaded nothing more than to have it disturbed, he had met this girl who had exercised upon him from the first a curious effect, half repellant, half attractive, and wholly baffling and alarming, whose hair he had objected to because it was "too red" and who played the piano with a force and fire and pa.s.sion, which stirred his heart as he had resolved it should never be stirred again.

Gerard had always intended to marry, but he proposed, in spite of the efforts of Eleanor Van Antwerp and other anxious friends, to take his time about it. He had his ideal of the sort of wife he wanted--a being as different as possible from his first love, and almost as tiresome a compound of all the domestic virtues as that mythical personage whom Hannah More's hero had once gone in search of. But, unlike that estimable individual, he had fallen in love with a woman far removed from his ideal, of doubtful antecedents which he liked no better than Bobby Van Antwerp, of qualities the reverse of domestic, and the type of hair and coloring which he had long illogically, but none the less strongly, a.s.sociated with a certain lack of moral sense.

Yet though Gerard could not help his feelings, he could certainly control his actions, and he was determined to keep away from Elizabeth Van Vorst--more especially now since there seemed to be some unaccountable understanding between her and that young Halleck.

Yet that very fact made him the more anxious to see her, and find out for himself how far his suspicions were justified. "Good Heavens,"

thought Gerard, getting up and pacing restlessly to and fro "how can she care for a fellow like that--so second-rate, so superficial, such a--such a cad? What is Eleanor thinking of to have him at the house?

Some one really ought to give her a hint--not I; but--some one." ...

The end of it all was that he strolled into Mrs. Van Antwerp's drawing-room that afternoon, his usual air of well-bred impa.s.siveness unmoved by the sight of Paul Halleck seated at the piano, and the cynosure of several pairs of admiring feminine eyes.

Elizabeth's eyes were not among them. She was in a back room pouring tea. But Gerard had no sooner a.s.sured himself of her being thus harmlessly employed, than his jealous heart suggested that there was something sinister in such apparent indifference.

He wandered into the other room as soon as he decently could. She was seated at the tea-table, for the moment, entirely alone. Seen thus off guard, for she did not at first perceive Gerard, there was something indefinably weary and listless in her att.i.tude. She was paler even than she had been that day at the Portrait Show, and the lines beneath her eyes were not black, but purple. It would have gone ill with her reputation as a beauty had it been put to the vote that afternoon. But it was Gerard's peculiarity, his misfortune perhaps, that she appealed to him most at times when to the world at large she was looking her worst. He stood watching her for a moment. Presently she looked up.

She caught sight of him. Instantly the warm, lovely color rushed into her cheeks, only to retreat, and leave her paler than before--but not till he had seen it.

His manner was very gentle as he approached her and asked for a cup of tea. She poured it out mechanically, with a hand that trembled.

"We have not seen you lately," she said, with eyes carefully riveted on the tea-things. "Eleanor was wondering--what had become of you."

"Indeed! It was very kind of her to give me a thought." Gerard stirred his tea absently. "I was busy," he said "with an article I had promised for a magazine."

"Ah! You write a great deal, don't you?" Elizabeth looked up with some interest. "I should like to see some of your articles, if I may."

He smiled. "You don't know what you're asking. You'd find them very dull."

"What, because I'm so dull myself?" she asked, with a flash of spirit.

"I told you once before," he said, in the tone that he had used to her at the studio "that I didn't think you--that."

"Ah, but you think me other things that are--worse."

"As what, for instance?" he asked, smiling.

"Oh frivolous, and vain, and heartless. A lot of horrid things."

"I only said you _seemed_ so."

"Ah, then you think I'm better than I seem?" she asked, flippantly, yet with a swift inward pang.

He seemed to consider. "I think you are very--incomprehensible," he said at last.

She bent down over the tea-things, so that he could not see her face.

"Oh, that's only," she said, in a low voice "because you haven't the key to the enigma. If you had it"--She paused. "You might not like the things you understood," she concluded.

Gerard put down his untasted cup. "I'm willing to take the risk," he said, deliberately.

He waited, as if for an answer, but none came. She appeared to busy herself with the tea-things. In the next room Paul Halleck began to sing the Evening Star song. It seemed to Gerard that Elizabeth turned a shade paler than she had been before.

"He has a fine voice," he said, when the song was finished. "Don't you think so?"

She started. "Yes, I--I think so," she said, mechanically.

"I was surprised a little at Eleanor's going in for music," Gerard went on. "It isn't her line, generally."

"No, it isn't her line," Elizabeth repeated, in the same mechanical tones. Suddenly she met his eyes defiantly. "I asked her to have him here," she said.

"Ah, you asked her?" Gerard drew his breath quickly. "I _thought_ he was a--a friend of yours."

"You thought so?" she returned quickly, and then in a low voice, as if she dreaded the answer: "Why?"

"Why?" He repeated her question as if it surprised him. For a moment he seemed to hesitate; then, as if forming a sudden resolution: "I thought so," he said, steadily, and looking her straight in the face "for one thing, because I saw you walking in the Park with him one morning."

"Ah, you--you saw me?" She seemed to gasp for breath. Then, with a quick, impetuous movement, she pushed the tea-things away from her.

"And so," she said, turning to him suddenly, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling "you--you put the worst construction upon that, you think more ill of me than ever?"--

He had turned very pale, but still his voice was steady. "I don't know why I should think ill of you, for such a simple thing as that.

But if there is any secret about it"--he fixed his eyes upon her coldly, haughtily--"if the meeting was not intended to be known, why I--I'm sorry I should have seen it. Of course I should not mention it--to any one else."

She flushed a little, then grew pale, before the scorn in his eyes.

"There is--there is no secret," she said, in a low voice. "You can mention it--to whom you please."

"I confess I was a little surprised," he went on, without heeding her, and this time a note of keen anxiety pierced through the studied quietness of his voice, his gaze softened, as if imploring her to give him the explanation which he had no right to demand. "I was a little taken aback," he said, "because I understood you to say--the day before--that you hardly knew him."

"Yes, I--I remember." She leaned back in her chair, staring before her with hard, bright eyes. "When I told you that," she said, slowly "I--I lied."

It gave him a keen shock to hear her p.r.o.nounce the word. He did not speak, and she looked up at him presently with a little, deprecating smile. "Now," she said, softly "I've shocked you, haven't I?"

He was silent for a moment. "No," he said, at last "not that; but--I'm sorry. I don't like to think of you as--misstating anything, even if the matter is of no importance."

She had taken up a teaspoon, and was playing with it absently. "I don't know," she said, slowly "why you should care."

"Don't you?" He turned his eyes away. "I wish to Heaven I didn't," he said, low and fiercely. The words were not intended for her, but she heard them and again the warm, beautiful color rushed into her cheeks.

An answer trembled on her lips, but she struggled not to say it; struggled against the desire to bring that glow to his face, that light to his eyes, which she knew so well lay dormant, beneath the heavy lids. She knew, ah, she knew. While he stayed away she had her misgivings, but now that she saw him again, she read his heart, even as she had done at the Portrait Show. She had only to be herself, her best self, and she held him captive, he could not escape. Yet, paradoxically, her better instincts urged upon her to show him her worst side, to say the things which hurt and shocked him.

While she hesitated, people came crowding in from the next room. In the confusion that ensued, Gerard was forced away from the table. He fell back against the wall, and watched Elizabeth while, with instinctive self-command, she fulfilled the different demands made upon her. He saw Halleck go up to her gaily, flushed with his success, and bending over her, murmur a few jesting words, which she heard without a smile. Gerard could have killed him for the air of proprietorship which was even more p.r.o.nounced than at the musicale.

But she--how did she like it? He scanned her face eagerly. There was no softness there, no answering gleam of pleasure; rather a dull, dogged look of submission, which seemed to cover, or Gerard deceived himself, an instinctive shrinking, a powerless resentment.

"She doesn't care for him," he thought, with a quick, sharp sense of relief. "And yet--she has to be civil to him, she has to do things to help him. Why, for Heaven's sake, why?" He wandered into the other room, tormenting himself with this question, and found his hostess there.

"What do you think of my new protege?" she asked, detaining him as he took his leave.