The Tigress Part 41

"No. She didn't want any one. We suggested sending for the duke and d.u.c.h.ess. But the idea only excited her. Then we thought of Kneedrock.

He's a cousin, you know, and a sort of next-of-kin protector and adviser. But she wouldn't have him at any price. Gritty little woman, Nina."

Dr. Dodson came between tea and dinner, and it was more through good luck than good management that Carleigh saw him.

He had gone to his nursery bed-chamber, where he had been looking over the evening things laid out for him, only to discover that the pumps provided were fully two sizes too large.

Twice he had rung for valet or footman without response--his own man had been shipped up to town that morning--and was on his way to Nevill Dalgries's quarters when he encountered an elderly gentleman--bearded, carrying a small professional-looking hand-bag, and stepping with professional briskness--turning into the corridor from an intersecting pa.s.sage.

He stopped him without the least hesitation. "I fancy you are Dr.

Dodson?" he said.

The physician signified a.s.sent, and Carleigh introduced himself.

"I do so want to learn of poor Mrs. Darling," he went on. "I am very anxious."

"Mrs. Darling," Dodson replied, "is doing capitally. I have every reason to believe that she will make an amazingly quick recovery, Sir Caryll."

"That is good news indeed," Carleigh rejoined. "And now there is a favor I have to ask. I really think that I should be allowed to see her."

The doctor pursed his lips and his eyes shot a question through his gla.s.ses.

"I am deeply interested in her," the young man went on, "and I believe she would wish it, if you let her know."

His effort was to speak in exactly the right tone, all things considered. Yet he was wofully uncertain as to just what were the things he had to consider.

"I will ask her, of course," returned Dodson. "But I must warn you in advance, Sir Caryll, that Mrs. Darling does not care to see any one.

Aside from the severe shock, she is at present, you know, so very badly disfigured."

Caryll experienced a deathlike sinking at his heart. Until this minute he had barely considered this matter of disfigurement. He just couldn't believe it--couldn't realize it as a possibility.

"How--" he began, and stopped short.

"One side of her face is very badly burned," said the doctor.

A man doesn't like to hear such things about a woman for whom he has just confessed an attachment. It took a brief moment for Carleigh to collect himself. Then: "Beg her to see me, please," he asked a little stiffly.

He saw the physician go, but he had very little hope. It was hardly possible that she would accede to his plea.

She didn't want "Doody" and "Pucketts." She didn't want even "Nibbetts,"

who, it was clear to him, was usually her help in time of trouble. What chance then was there that she would see him?

But to his surprise and that of the doctor as well, she did.

Her maid came back with Dodson and took him to the room. And there, in the half dark made by the drawn window-curtains he saw her lying in the wide, white bed, her beauty hidden--or was it her hideousness--by swathing white cloths.

She looked curiously Eastern and uncanny, and his thoughts crowded, and he was dumb.

But she held out her right hand to him and said: "So nice to see you!

But--what is this I hear they are telling about us? Such astounding tales."

Then he knew that Rosamond had made no secret of his daring speech and that the doors and windows of gossip were all set open afresh.

He sat down in a chair close by her side and took the hand she offered, and held it close to his own.

"I have been telling the truth," he said, with that cool, odd courage which leaps like a well-trained servant to do the bidding of some men.

"It is only a few days as time is counted, but clocks should be our slaves instead of our masters. To me it seems an eternity since you so gave me back to myself that I"--he faltered ever so slightly--"could love--yes, really and truly--love again. And I do. Oh, Nina, I do! Just you--only you."

Then, all at once, he remembered, and looked sharply about the room. He had forgotten the maid. He had not thought of Cecile Archdeacon. They might be there, somewhere, curtained by the gloom.

"Don't be alarmed," Nina said, amused. "There is no one but I to hear your confession. Cecile withdrew discreetly before you came, and my maid parted from you on the other side of the door."

"I love you," he repeated, rea.s.sured.

"But you have said openly here, in this house, that we are engaged--that I had your ring."

For a breath he hesitated. Then: "Let it stand," he pleaded, and bent toward her. "You are like me, you are sick of it all. The world has bruised us both--has tried to make outcasts of us both--has blackened us falsely.

"Let us go away together--to Yukon, to Ceylon, to where you will. Let us build for ourselves a free life--a new, clean life, out in those free, new clean surroundings."

He was actually surprised at his own eloquence and at how in earnest he felt; and how chivalrous. But he was still more surprised at how keen he was to prove to Rosamond that he had spoken truthfully.

"But I'm disfigured," said Nina behind her white windings. "Horridly disfigured."

"It will not matter," he declared.

"And I am old. I count for ten years beyond you."

"That is our own affair--our very own affair." He felt the hand within his quiver lightly and hope rose.

"I really am very fond of you," she whispered.

"Believe me, it is love," he whispered in return. "See how it s.n.a.t.c.hed us both in the same instant."

Her fingers nestled sweetly in among his own.

"Did Kneedrock tell you more than you told me?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered frankly. "But it made no difference. I don't care what people say about you."

"But I have played with fire so often--once too often," she added with a laugh. "Fire came near ending me at last."

Abruptly his curiosity roused. "They say you were safely down stairs, and that then you turned and went back. Why did you go back?"

"I wanted something."

"What? What was worth the risk?"

For just a little she did not answer. Then, slowly, she reached out her other hand--her left hand. "For this," she said.