The Rubicon Part 22

Mrs. Davenport and Reggie had moved slowly up the staircase, and Reggie certainly was finding it amusing. There were lots of people he knew, and he stood chatting on the stairs while Mrs. Davenport talked for a few moments to her sister.

Later on he was standing in a doorway between two of the big reception rooms, talking and laughing, and commanding, by reason of his height, a good deal of the room beyond, when he saw the crowd by the door opposite to him sway and move, as if a wind had pa.s.sed over it; and through the room, plainly visible, for the crowd made way for her as she was walking with a prince, came a woman he had never seen before. She was tall, dressed in some pale, soft material; round her neck went a single row of diamonds, and above it rose a face for the like of which men have lived and died. Eva had a habit of looking over people's heads and noticing no one, but Reggie happened to be six foot three, and in his long, eager gaze was something that arrested Eva's attention. She looked at him fixedly and gravely, until the thing became absurd, and then she turned away with a laugh, and asked who that pretty boy was.

Reggie, when the spell of her look was broken, turned away too, and asked who the most beautiful woman in the world was.

"There, there," he cried, pointing at her, regardless of men or manners.

So the great loom clashed and crossed, and two more threads were woven, side by side, into the garment of G.o.d.

CHAPTER V.

There is a distinct tendency, if we may trust books on travels and early stages of religious belief among the uncivilised, dusky ma.s.ses of the world to a.s.sign every event to a direct supernatural influence. Certain savages, if they hit their foot against a stone, will say that there is a demon in that stone, and they hasten to appease him by sacrificial sops. We see the exact opposite of this among those nations, which, like those in our own favoured isle, a.s.sign every event to pure chance. There is no harm in calling it chance, and there is no harm in a.s.signing the most insignificant event to a local G.o.d, and the lesson we may learn from these elementary reflections is, that there are, at least, two points of view from which we may regard anything.

To adopt, however, the nomenclature of the day, this chance that led Lady Hayes to walk down that room at the French Emba.s.sy, when Reggie was standing at the door, was a very big chance. One of the least important results of it was that it occasioned this book to be written.

Reggie was, as I have mentioned before, a very susceptible young man. He fully realised, _in propria persona_, Mrs. Davenport's "healthy condition" of being in a chronic state of devotion, and this, coupled to his extreme susceptibility, will fully account for the fact that he moved slowly after Lady Hayes, till, by another chance meeting, she fell in with his mother, who had followed him from the top of the stairs, and got introduced. Mrs. Davenport p.r.o.nounced the mystic words, "Lady Hayes, may I introduce my son Reggie," and the thing was done.

Lady Hayes was amused to find herself so quickly introduced to the "pretty boy" who had stared at her, and as her prince had gone away, she was ready to talk to him, and it appeared that he was ready to talk to her.

"I was so sorry I couldn't come to lunch yesterday," he began, "and I forgot to send a note to say I couldn't."

"We have lunch every day," remarked Lady Hayes, gravely. "Come to-morrow. I shall think it very rude if you cut me again. So will Percy. I shall send him to call you out."

"I know Percy very well," said Reggie. "I'm awfully fond of him. I don't believe he'd call me out."

Eva looked at him again with some amus.e.m.e.nt. This particular type was somewhat new to her. He was so extraordinarily young.

"I'm very fond of Percy too," she said.

"Oh, but he's your brother," said Reggie.

"So he is."

She laughed again.

"How extremely handsome he is," she thought to herself, in a parenthesis. "Why was I never so young as that."

Then aloud,--

"I'm going to ask you to give me your arm, and take me to get something cold to drink. Do you like ices?" she asked with some experimental malice.

"Lemon water," said Reggie after consideration, "but not cream ices, they're stuffy, somehow. I'd better tell my mother where we're going, and then I can meet her again afterwards."

"Ah! Lady Hayes," exclaimed the voice of their host's brother, "I've been looking for you. Prince Waldenech wishes to be introduced to you.

Adeline sent me to find you."

Lady Hayes raised her eyebrows.

"I'll come by and by," she said. "I can't now. I'm going to eat an ice--lemon water. Tell her I will be back soon--ten minutes."

"Prince Waldenech's just going."

"Then I am afraid it will be a pleasure deferred for me. Come, Mr.

Davenport. You shall have a lemon water ice, and so will I."

"That was very kind of you to keep your engagement to me," said Reggie.

"You deserved I should cut you, as you cut me yesterday. But I felt inclined to keep this engagement, which makes all the difference. Of course, if you'd felt inclined to come yesterday you wouldn't have forgotten. One never forgets things one likes."

"Oh, but I did feel inclined to come," said Reggie, and stopped short.

"It was self denial, was it?"

"No, I was wanted to do something else."

"What did you do else, if it isn't rude to ask?"

"Oh! I went to the concert at St. James'. They did the Tannhauser overture."

"Did you like it?"

"Oh yes, it was awfully pretty."

Eva laughed again.

"I expected you would think it stupid or ugly."

"How did you know?" asked he.

"You told me yourself. I knew almost as soon as you began to speak.

Never mind. Don't look so puzzled. You shall come to the opera some night with me, and hear it again. I'm dreadfully rude, am I not?"

"You rude! No!" said Reggie, stoutly. "But you mustn't mind my being stupid."

"I like stupid people."

"I should have thought you would have hated them. But I'm glad you like them," said he, blushing furiously.

"What pretty speeches! But you are quite wrong about my hating stupid people--I don't say you're stupid, you know--but in the abstract. You see I know much more about you already than you know about me. I was right about your thinking Wagner ugly, and you were wrong about my disliking stupid people. There's the buffet. I shall sit down here, and you shall bring two ices--one for yourself and one for me."

It was characteristic of Reggie that he wrote an effusive though short note to Gertrude next day, saying that he had met Lady Hayes at the French Emba.s.sy, that she was perfectly beautiful and awfully nice, and that he couldn't write any more because he was just going out to lunch with her, and that three days after this another short note followed this one, saying that Lady Hayes was awfully anxious to meet her--Gertrude--that Gertrude must come home as quick as ever she could, and that Mrs. Arbuthnot was going to Lucerne in July, so that, if Mrs.

Carston could join her there, Gertrude could come straight home. He had heard that Lucerne was very slow.

Lady Hayes had been "awfully nice" to Reggie. She had hardly ever seen anything so fresh as he was. About two days after their first meeting, Reggie had told her, with unblushing candour, all about Gertrude, and Lady Hayes was charmed to hear it. Reggie's confession of his young love seemed simply delightful. He was so refreshingly unversed in the ways of the world. He had spoken of Gertrude with immense ardour, and had shown Lady Hayes her photograph. He had been there to call one afternoon, and had found her alone. They had tea in the little tent over the porch, which Eva kept there "_en permanence_," and in which she had routed her mother-in-law a year ago.