CHAPTER IV

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“A HORRID OLD MAN!”

Lord Levallion was bored.

He hated garden-parties, and he had patiently endured the Duchess of Avonmore’s country omnium-gatherum from four o’clock until six. He could not go home, because he was staying in the house, and, retreat being impossible, he had revenged himself for his martyrdom on his old friend, Lady Annesley, by departing hastily on her eager offer to introduce him to her stepdaughter.

“I don’t see her just now,” Sylvia Annesley had said, with the smile he had once known so well, “but if you will come with me we shall easily find her!”

“No, thank you, Sylvia; I don’t care for little girls.”

Lord Levallion had the rudest drawl in the world when it pleased him, and he enjoyed Lady Annesley’s rage at it now. It was all very well to write her a note by way of amusing himself on a wet day, but it was another story to have her introduce him to a bread-and-butter miss.

“The woman wears well, though,” he reflected, as he adroitly drifted away from her. “Who would imagine it was fifteen years since I loved and rode away! I think a cigarette might assist me to endure to the end, if I can get away from this madding crowd. I’ll get back to town to-morrow, that’s one thing certain. The country is less in my line than ever.”

He pursued his leisurely way through the magnificent old gardens, round the end of the lake, and finally found a seat on a retired bench in the heart of a grove of trees. There was not a soul to be seen, and if it had not been for the mellow sound of a distant band Lord Levallion would not even have been reminded that he was at a party. He had smoked one cigarette, and was lighting another with a contented sigh, when he heard a quick step and a rustle of silk which caused him to look up sharply. Pray the gods Sylvia had not tracked him!

But it was not Sylvia. It was a strange girl, all in white from her hat to her shoes, and she did not even see him as she walked toward him along the quiet path where the light came dim and green through overarching boughs. She was magnificently handsome--and she was blind with tears that streamed down her face. Her white gown trailed unheeded on the gravel as she fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief.

“Something must be very wrong,” Levallion reflected swiftly, “to make her ruin her skirt round the hem!”

But even in her tears she was gloriously beautiful, and he was not going to let her pass him.

Lord Levallion got up, dropped his cigarette, and took off his hat.

“I beg your pardon,” he said gravely. “I will go.” But he did not move.

Ravenel Annesley started furiously.

“I didn’t see you,” she said, with a sob in her throat. “I thought there was no one here. And--I wanted to be alone.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes savagely, with a morsel of a handkerchief; but they came again, and Levallion saw her chest lift with an uncontrollable sob.

“Do you want to stop crying?” he said quietly.

Ravenel stamped her foot.

“Of course I do, but I can’t!” she cried childishly.

“Then don’t be alone,” he returned. “If you stay by yourself you will cry till you are not fit to be seen. Sit down here by me instead, and talk. Oh, I know you’re wishing me miles away; but just try it! When you get to my age you will find it is always better to stop crying.”

His voice was cool and hard. It came on her nerves like iced water. She did not answer him, but she sat down on a corner of the bench limply, as if her feet could carry her no longer.

“Do you mind my cigarette? No,” as she shook her small, averted head. “Then I will smoke. Don’t rub your eyes unless you want the whole world to know you’ve been crying,” looking down his nose at the cigarette he was lighting. “And the more you have been crying the less you probably want people to know it.”

“No one would have known it if you hadn’t been here!” she said angrily. “Now I suppose you’ll tell the duchess.”

“Why the duchess?” Anything to make her talk. It was a sin to let so lovely a face be cried into hideousness. He hoped devoutly she would not blow her nose! Women usually did when they cried.

“It’s her party, so you must know her. And I don’t know whether you know any one else or not.”

“I have not the honor of knowing you, at all events,” he returned coolly. “So that I couldn’t tell the duchess if I wanted to--which I don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter who I am.” She bit her handkerchief desperately. “I wish I was anybody--I wish I were dead!”

“That is a wish you are certain to get--in time! It’s not worth while to cry because you despair of it,” blandly.

“I’m not crying.” She turned her small, white face to him, and her eyes were dry, if her lip still quivered.

“No, but you are extremely unhappy,” looking at her as indifferently as if he were not taking in every point in her lovely, mutinous face.

“So would you be. At least, I don’t know,” with frank rudeness. “Perhaps at your age you would not care.”

She bestowed a look on him for the first time, but without a shade of coquetry. The man might have been a tree or a stone for all she card. It was not the way women usually regarded Lord Levallion, and it interested him. He turned his high-bred, worn face, with the lines of forty-seven years on it, toward her with a keen glance which somehow reminded her of Adrian. The thought brought a fresh lump in her throat.

“I wish I could go home,” she said miserably. “I--I’ve lost something, and I’d like to get home and look for it. If it wouldn’t make a hue and cry I’d walk home now.”

She had not had one happy minute since discovering her ring was gone. Had turned from the wondering Tommy, digging for his beer in the parsley, and run up-stairs like a frantic, raging child, to the door of Lady Annesley’s room. And there something stopped her like a tangible thing. She stood motionless, with clenched hands, felt cold in the warm May air that flooded through an open window. Why had she come running up here like a fool, when she knew she dared not open that shut door in front of her and demand her ring of the woman inside?

“If I said Adrian had given me a ring she’d never let me set eyes on him again!” she thought, with more truth than she knew. “She knows I never had a ring. She’d ask--and what could I say? I might lie, but it’s no use to lie to a liar; they know too much. And, perhaps, she hasn’t taken it--perhaps I dropped it! I was out in the garden before breakfast. I’ll wait! I’ll tell Adrian to-morrow. It’s no use to give myself away for nothing.”

And here was to-morrow--and no Adrian. Man after man of his regiment she had seen, but she knew none of them. She could not go up to strange men and clamor for news of Adrian Gordon. Her heart felt like a stone when it grew too late to expect the man for whom she had come in that white gown that felt as if it burned her. She had slipped away from the crowd, away from Sylvia, like a child who cannot keep a brave front any longer. Where was Adrian? And how was she to bear the rest of this dreadful party?

“How far is ‘home’?” Levallion said suddenly.

“I don’t know. Five miles and more. I can’t walk in these,” with a sudden glance at her white suède shoes. “I’d ruin them--and they’re not mine. They and everything else were put on me in hopes that a horrid old man might admire me. Thank goodness, I haven’t even seen him! And I wouldn’t have spoken to him if I had!”

A sudden light arose on Lord Levallion’s horizon. This must be Sylvia’s stepdaughter.

“Ah!” he commented grimly. “What old man? Levallion?”

Ravenel nodded.

“She did not say so, of course, but I feel sure of it. Why? Do you know him?”

“As well as most people.” But he said it without much spirit. It did not somehow amuse him to be considered “a horrid old man.” He got up, rather stiffly.

“If you want to go home,” he said, “I will drive you. I am no more interested in this party than you. I will get a pony-cart at the stables and meet you at the turn of the avenue. It will fill up my time till dinner.”

“There isn’t going to be any dinner,” crossly. “There’s going to be supper, and the duchess has asked me to stay and dance afterward. If I have to stay here till eleven o’clock I sha’n’t be able to stand it.”

“Then don’t stay. You don’t”--the “horrid old man” rankled--“look fit to be seen in any case! If your chaperon is going to stay to supper, I will find her when I come back and tell her I took you home.”

“Will you?” Her face grew almost happy. She cared nothing at all for appearances, or that she had not been introduced to this stranger, who stood looking at her with cynical kindness.

“Yes! Come along,” he returned abruptly. “You needn’t thank me. I’m very much bored, and I’m going for my own amusement.”

“But how can you tell my stepmother, Lady Annesley? Do you know her?”

“You can write it,” producing a neat gold pencil and note-book and tearing out a leaf.

He watched her while she wrote. Truly Sylvia had done well to dress her all in white! Most women tried to please you without consulting your tastes, but Sylvia had not forgotten that he thought white the only wear for a pretty woman.

“There!” The girl handed him a scribbled note nervously. “You will be sure to give it to Lady Annesley?”

“I promise you,” with grave politeness. “Now, if you will be at the turn of the avenue in ten minutes I will have the cart there.”

Ravenel nodded. If it were twenty miles she would go home. She could not bear another half-hour at this miserable party.

There was not a soul to be seen as she sprang lightly up into the high, two-wheeled cart, never even asking how her strange friend was able to order out the duchess’ own pony. She leaned back wearily as they started, and the man beside her was too wise to try to make her talk.

In silence they drove through the quiet country lanes, the setting sun reddening the bronze of the girl’s hair and lending a false color to her listless face. When they reached the open door of Annesley Chase, she was down like a flash before he could get out.

“Thank you--oh, a hundred times!” she cried gratefully. “You will give Lady Annesley her note at once, won’t you?”

“At once,” lifting his hat. But the girl had run into the house.

Now was her time, while Lady Annesley was out. She tore off the smart white gown she had put on so carefully, and threw it on the floor. Then she got out Adrian Gordon’s letter and looked at it feverishly. There it was in black and white: “I can go to the duchess’. I was afraid I couldn’t manage it.”

Well, something must have happened! But at least she was at home again; she could look for her ring. And suppose he had not been able to go to-day, what did it matter? To-morrow would be her wedding-day, and after that nothing could come between them any more.

Pale, trembling, her heart heavy as lead, in spite of herself, she stole like a thief to her stepmother’s room. The Umbrella was down-stairs, and Ravenel hunted quickly in every drawer and box. It never struck her as being odd that they should be all unlocked, exactly as if the more thoroughly they were searched the better for their owner’s plans. And the girl, after thirty minutes, knew she looked in vain. Her ring was not in the room. Somehow and somewhere she must have lost it. She remembered that, like a fool, she had tied the ribbon in a bow. It was utterly inexplicable except for that.

As Ravenel crept away, utterly hopeless, Sylvia Annesley was standing in the duchess’ drawing-room, with a heart that beat high in joyful surprise.

“What!” she cried incredulously, “you drove her home? But you did not know her!”

“I met her,” Lord Levallion returned dryly, “during the afternoon. You had decked her out to meet the eye, hadn’t you?”

But Lady Annesley did not flinch. Instead, she did not seem to have heard his fleering voice. She had grown pale under her rouge, and she laid a quick, insistent hand on his arm.

“When did you go? What time?” she cried sharply. “And did you meet any one on the road? Was there any one waiting at the Chase when you got there?”

“No. There was not, to my knowledge--any one!” with an exact imitation of her tone. “No one either met or waylaid us.”

So that was the reason of the tears! Madam Sylvia had somehow tricked the girl into coming here, and now was frightened into her little shoes for fear she had not stayed long enough. For Lady Annesley’s smile, for once, was absent.

“Tell them to get my carriage, will you?” she said slowly. “I must go, too. That foolish, headstrong girl of mine may be ill. Perhaps you will come over to-morrow?”

To-morrow Lord Levallion had meant should see him in London. He shook his head for sole answer, but decided to wait a day all the same.

“Your stepdaughter seemed in excellent health when I left her,” he observed, turning away to send for her ladyship’s carriage. “But, all the same, I dare say you are wise to get home!”

She looked quite old, he saw, in her sudden anxiety, and he wondered cynically just what ailed her, for she scarcely said good-by as he saw her into her shabby fly.

That vehicle seemed to crawl to its impatient occupant. But at last she reached her own door, with as quick a step as Ravenel’s own, her room, where the Umbrella sat limply waiting.

“Adams, what time did Miss Annesley get home?” she demanded sharply. “Was there any one here? Quick! Any one?”

The Umbrella rose stolidly.

“Not when Miss Annesley came,” she said slowly, and her hearer thought she did it on purpose. “Everything has been all quite right, my lady. A gentleman called, though, and left his card.”

“It doesn’t matter,” sharply, but she glanced at it with such relief that her head swam, before she tore it to pieces. “It was no one I minded missing.”

“No, my lady.” And if there was the familiarity of a confidante in the woman’s tone Lady Annesley did not notice it, nor that she neatly collected the bits of torn card off the floor.

Her ladyship felt really dizzy with fatigue, or emotion, as she flung herself into a chair.

“I’ll dine up here,” she said slowly. It was all right and her net seemed to have caught Levallion, but such days were ageing. She had fought her Waterloo, and she felt the reaction even of victory. Tired to death, the weight of the rings on her slender hands felt unbearable. Her ladyship rose softly and hastily and locked the gorgeous things away.

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