CHAPTER XIII

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IN LEVALLION’S HOUSE.

“What shall I do?” said Lady Levallion to herself. “What shall I do?”

She stood on the grass and watched them carry Adrian into her house, making not the slightest attempt to follow. The sun dropped below the ledge of the rose-garden, and as its rim disappeared a chill crept to her bones. In a minute the servants would be back to take in the tea things, the wicker chair that fate had stuck in Adrian’s way. They must not find her here standing motionless. And she had nowhere to go that she might be alone. There was no room in all Levallion Castle where she could lock her door without question and fight down the bewildered pain that was making her sick. Her maid would be in her bedroom, Levallion would come, as usual, to her dressing-room when his toilet was finished and hers all but done. Truly Ravenel Annesley had been freer than Ravenel Levallion, for she had dared to lock her door and cry.

She had not been as brave, though! Lady Levallion set her teeth and walked slowly into the house and up-stairs to her goggle-eyed maid. The romantic return of his lordship’s cousin had set every servant in the house agog, but her ladyship looked so listless that her maid dared not speak till she was spoken to, which was some time, for Lady Levallion went straight to her dressing-table and stood staring at herself in the glass.

Her face looked strange, vacant. It was not so she had dreamed she should look when Adrian rose from the dead; not so she would dare look when Levallion came in. She turned with despairing courage to make a toilet that should cover her changed looks, and saw a pale-lilac gown laid out on her bed.

“Oh, not that!” she said--and naturally, to her eternal credit, for she could have screamed so like was the thing to that long-gone Sunday frock--“I’m too tired and pale. Get me something else--pink! There’s a pink thing somewhere.”

As she bathed her face in scented water she hid her drawn mouth in the sponge, for one blessed instant let it work as it would. Oh, lucky, lucky Nel Annesley, who had only cold water to wash in, and could let her eyes swell if she liked! But when Lady Levallion laid down her damask towel and stood to be dressed in a loose dinner-gown of pale-rose crêpe de chine she was far more lowly than even that far-away girl had been. If her eyes were somber it was only natural when she had seen a man drop like death at her feet. At Levallion’s knock her cheeks blazed suddenly.

“Well?” she said, as he entered and her maid discreetly vanished. She wondered if Adrian were going to die, or if--and she almost laughed out hysterically--he were coming down to dine with her and Levallion. What a cheerful dinner-party he and she and Levallion!

“I put him to bed. He’s only just come to.” He sank down into a chair as if he were tired and lit a cigarette.

“Poor devil. I feel sorry for him! He wasn’t fit to travel in the first place, and it must have been a shock to him--coming here!”

“Why?” She was almost inarticulate. Did he know? Had Adrian told? Oh, of course, not. No man is likely to tell another that he has behaved like a villain to that other’s wife. “How do you mean?” and she sat down opposite Levallion in the full light of a rose-colored lamp. She was not afraid, no one should ever say she had been afraid. If it would serve any purpose she would tell Levallion everything now! And with a sudden tightening at her heart-strings knew she could not betray Adrian Gordon in Levallion’s house.

“Well,” observed his lordship dryly, “it would have been a shock to most men to come home thinking themselves sure heir to eighty thousand pounds a year and find out--it seems he didn’t know I was married!” hastily, and leaving his sentence unfinished at the scarlet on his wife’s face.

“You very absurd person,” he said, with the impassive manner she knew meant tenderness, “don’t look so appalled. He may come in for it yet.”

But it was not a girl’s shyness that had flamed out in her face, but hot shame for Adrian, who had said he was too poor to make her an offer openly. She moved restlessly. How long was he to stay under her roof?--that should have been his.

“He looked very ill,” she said.

“Men do with a splintered bone in their arm, and fever,” Levallion returned, rather dryly.

“He can’t be moved for some time, I fancy. You will have to do the Good Samaritan, Ravenel, and cheer him back to life.”

“I hate sick people!” cried Ravenel hastily, and grew red again at her lie. “Yes I do, Levallion. Don’t ever dare to get ill.”

“Well, there’ll be ‘dearth of women’s nursing and lack of women’s tears’ then!” dryly. “I can’t say I ever saw any great restorative in the latter, except, perhaps to the woman,” throwing his cigarette into the grate. He had always known she was hard. Why did it come on him now like a dash of cold water?

“God knows I’m hard enough myself!” he thought, as he made his way to his own dressing-room. “But she did not seem to have any pity for the poor devil.”

It was odd sorrow he felt himself for Adrian, who had been so incoherently anxious to get back to town and not be a nuisance. Lord Levallion was rather ashamed of his own weakness; it would have pleased him to have had his wife fuss pityingly over his ousted heir and let him take refuge in cynical comments.

“Though he mayn’t be so ousted after all.” He did a little cynical remark on his own account. “I may be rejoiced with squalling brats.” But something dark came into his face as if a past folly had suddenly crept from its grave and faced him.

“It is better to strike into a new life and go to dinner,” said Lord Levallion aloud, to the bewilderment of his servant.

He made an excellent dinner certainly, for he had a new French cook, who had disdained to stay with royalty on account of being limited in butlers. Lord Levallion was tired, as well as worried about his guest up-stairs, and the Frenchman’s cooking appealed to him; which was more than it did to his wife.

For at the fish the doctor was ushered into the dining-room. She had not known Levallion thought Adrian bad enough to need a doctor. She shook hands mechanically with the good-looking, clear-eyed man whom Levallion introduced as Doctor Houghton, and mechanically motioned the butler to set a chair for him.

“I’m afraid you will have a hospital on your hands, Lady Levallion.” Doctor Houghton was looking at her with real pleasure in her wonderful beauty that was anything but girlish to-night. “There is trouble in that arm.”

“And likely to be,” interrupted Levallion, “and you are going to send over a nurse, two nurses if you like, for he’ll stay here till he is well. Eh, Ravenel?”

Lady Levallion crushed her hands together under the table.

“Oh, of course!” she said. And she felt as if fate must be standing behind her laughing at Adrian Gordon’s unavailing efforts to get rid of her.

“Have some of this, Houghton?” said Levallion, as she refused a dish. “My wife is delightfully honest--and hard-hearted. She does not like made dishes, or people when they’re ill.”

“One will lead to the other with you,” Ravenel returned calmly, and laughed, for she had seen Houghton’s quick glance at her averted face, and she felt as if he could read there all that Levallion could not of her horror at this guest, who might be dying under her roof.

But Doctor Houghton was looking now at his plate, just as if he had not seen her dilated pupils, her hard, set mouth.

“It’s very good, but it tastes almost too much of almonds!” he observed frankly. “What is it?”

“Only chicken, done with almonds and chestnuts. I’ve a new cook, who can manage almonds. I shall have something made of them every day.”

“Which will probably send you to your grave!” laughing. “But I congratulate you on the artist. By the way, Lord Levallion, if you could keep me to-night, I should like to stay with Captain Gordon.”

“We would be infinitely relieved if you would.” (How Sylvia would have marveled at the kindly voice, the glance without mockery!)

Both made Ravenel feel an unutterable sneak.

Why had she never told Levallion all about Adrian?

It would have been better than this. To sleep, to live, to eat with him in her house, and to be a stranger to him; hating him in one breath, loving in the next, false either way to the bread she ate.

“What was that?” she said feverishly, longing for the time when she could leave the room. “I heard the bell ring.”

The dining-room was close to the hall door, its own door open; and a dull murmur of voices came from outside. Levallion half-rose--and sat down again. The thing in his thoughts was idiotic, impossible.

“It’s late for a visitor, but you can do anything in the country!” he remarked cheerfully. “What was that, Masters?” for the hall door had shut and no one had come in.

“A lady, my lord. Come to inquire for Captain Gordon.”

“A lady!” he looked utterly taken aback--for Lord Levallion. “Who was it?”

“I couldn’t say, my lord.” (Every servant in the house but Levallion’s valet was new, perhaps with reason.) “She was walking.”

“Well, we live and learn!” said Levallion piously, as the servants for the moment disappeared. “And I, who thought my young friend had nearly killed himself to come and see me!” he had had time to go over the list of his country neighbors, and knew Adrian had come to see none of them, even as he spoke. She must have come down with him.

Doctor Houghton glanced quite purposely at his hostess and looked away with haste, for the Lady Levallion sat white and speechless. It was not enough for Adrian to come and confront her brazenly, but he must needs bring a woman down with him--the woman probably of the gold-wire ring.

“She knows who it was!” Houghton reflected swiftly, and then felt sorry for her.

“Most romantic!” Levallion broke the silence with a lazy laugh. “They say ‘he travels the fastest who travels alone,’ but in my experience, company adds to the pace. I hope the lady’s anxiety will not keep her awake.”

And, clever as he undeniably was, it never occurred to Houghton that where Lady Levallion was angry by guesswork, Lord Levallion was in a black rage, born of certain knowledge.

“Though I can’t understand what she has to do with that young fool upstairs!” he reflected grimly, as Houghton returned to the invalid. “Nor why she came. But I may find out!”

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