The Paliser case Part 9

Lennox was rising.

Amiably Jones switched on and off again. "Hold on a minute. You have not given me the "Who's Who" of that young woman."

In Lennox' brain, instantly cells latent, alert, and of which he was entirely unconscious, functioned actively. Before him Ca.s.sy stood.

Beside her was another. This other, very lovely, was a saint. Yet, prompted still by the cells and equally unaware of it, it occurred to him that a lovely saint may resemble a vase that is exquisite, but unresilient and perhaps even empty. Whereas a siren, like Ca.s.sy----

Abruptly he caught himself up. The unawaited disloyalty into which he had floundered, surprised and annoyed him. He could not account for the delicate infidelity and perplexedly he looked at Jones who still was at it.

"The diva I mean. The diva in duodecimo who sang at the Bazaar."

Lennox shook himself and sat down again. Modestly then the thrice-told tale was repeated--Angelo Cara, a violin in one hand, a sword-cane in the other, trudging home. The attack, the rout, the rescue, the acquaintance with Ca.s.sy that ensued.

Jones, absorbing the story, pigeonholed his memory with the details which, sometime, for copy purposes, might be of use.

"They are Portuguese," Lennox, rising again, concluded.

Jones peered about. The great room was filled with members, eating, drinking, laughing, talking--talking mainly of nothing whatever. He motioned. "Isn't that Cantillon over there with--of all people!--Dunwoodie?"

Lennox looked and nodded. "Cantillon is in Dunwoodie's office. He asked me to give him my law business." Indifferently, with the air of one considering the improbable, Lennox added: "Some day I may. Good-night."

But in the night into which he then went, already that day was breaking.

IX

That same evening, as Lennox was leaving the club, Mrs. Austen, rising from the dinner-table, preceded Margaret into the drawing-room and looked at the clock, a prostrate nymph, balancing a dial on the soles of her feet. At the figures on the dial, the nymph pointed a finger.

From the clock Mrs. Austen turned and exclaimed at the windows which she had already examined. "The jardinieres have not yet been attended to! It is inconceivable!"

Margaret, who had seated herself, said: "You might send for the manager."

"He would only keep me waiting and then expect me to tell him what I wanted. He ought to know. Besides, I might have forgotten. It is very tiresome."

Margaret stood up. "I will tell him."

With a click, Mrs. Austen unfurled a fan and, with another click, refurled it. "No. I will see him myself. I am quite in the humour."

Margaret looked after her mother, who was leaving the room. The sudden tempest in a flowerpot surprised her. But the outer door closed.

Margaret reseated herself. Presently he would come and together they would make those plans that lovers make--and then unmake, unless, elsewhere, they have been made for them.

Meanwhile she waited. The incident at the Sandringham, the sight of Ca.s.sy, her mother's facile insinuations, these things had distressed her, because, and only because, they had prevented her from enjoying the innocent pleasure of the innocent visit to the rooms of her betrothed, whom she loved with a love that was too pure and too profound, to harbour doubt and suspicion and that evil child of theirs which jealousy is. Her faith was perfect. That faith showed in her face and heightened her beauty with a candour that should have disarmed her mother, who, in the hall below, was, at that moment, instructing a man and not about flower-boxes either.

"Mr. Lennox, you may know him, by sight I mean, will be coming here shortly. Please have him shown into that room there."

Mrs. Austen pa.s.sed on. The little room at which she had glanced that afternoon received her--a hospitality in which a mirror joined. The latter welcomed her with a glimpse of herself. It was like meeting an old friend. But no; a friend certainly, yet not an old one. Age had not touched this lady, not impudently at least, though where it may have had the impertinence to lay a finger, art had applied another, a moving finger that had written a parody of youth on her face which was then turning to some one behind her whom the mirror disclosed.

In turning, she smiled.

"It is so good of you, Mr. Lennox, to look in on me. The door-man told you about Margaret, did he not? No? How careless of him. The dear child has a headache and has gone to bed."

"Has she?" said Lennox. He found but that. But at least he understood why Margaret had not come to his rooms. The headache had prevented her.

"It is nothing." Mrs. Austen was telling him. "To-morrow she will be herself again. Nice weather we are having."

"Very," Lennox answered.

As he would have said the same thing if Mrs. Austen had declared that the weather was beastly, the reply did not matter. It did not matter to her; it did not matter to him. She was thinking of something else and he was also. He was thinking of Margaret, wondering whether he might not go to her. Were it not for the strait-jacket that conventionality is and which pinions the st.u.r.diest, he would have gone. He was a little afraid of Mrs. Austen, as an intelligent man sometimes is afraid of an imbecile woman. But his fear of her fainted beside the idea that if, disregarding the bagatelles of the door, he made his way to Margaret, she herself might not like it. That alone restrained him. Afterward he wished he had let nothing prevent him. Afterward he regretted it. It is the misery of life--and sometimes its reward--that regret should be futile.

But, at the moment, grim and virile, a hat in one hand, a stick in the other, his white tie just showing between the lapels of his overcoat, already he was consoling himself. He had not seen Margaret in the afternoon, and he was not to see her this evening. No matter. The morrow would repay--that morrow which is falser than the former day.

Pleasantly at him and at his thoughts, Mrs. Austen played the flute.

"Won't you sit down?" In speaking, she sank on a sofa which she occupied amply.

Lennox, shifting his stick, took a chair. Later, in one of those evil moods that come to the best, as well as to the worst, he wished he had brained her with it.

With the magic flute, Mrs. Austen continued: "To-morrow is Sunday, is it not? You must be sure to come. Dear me! I can remember when everybody went to church on Sunday and then walked up and down Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue had trees then instead of shops and on the trees were such funny little worms. They used to hang down and crawl on you. The houses, too, were so nice. They all had piazzas and on the piazzas were honeysuckles.

But I fear I am boasting. I don't really remember all that. It was my father who told me. Those must have been the good old days!"

Lennox again shifted his stick. "To-day I had hoped that you would look in on me."

The flute caressed the strain. "Yes. It was too bad! We had quite counted on it. Bachelor quarters must be so exciting."

"Well, not mine at any rate. They are rather dark."

"But that must make them all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends romping about!"

"My friends are too busy for that. Though to-day----"

"Yes?"

Lennox hesitated. He knew that this woman took no interest in him whatever, but he had intended to tell Margaret about Ca.s.sy.

Pleasantly Mrs. Austen prodded him. "Yes?"

"Nothing of any moment. This afternoon, Miss Cara, the girl who sang last night, came to see me. You may remember I told you I knew her father."

"It seems to me I do."

"Things have not gone well there and I advanced her a trifle for him."

Mrs. Austen unfurled her fan. It was all Honest Injun. She had not a doubt of it and never had. But if she had thought it a Sioux and Comanche story, it would have been the same to her.

"I am sorry you did not meet her," Lennox continued. "You might have lent her a hand."

"Professionally, you mean?"