The Heart of a Woman. Emma Orczy
do, Luke?" she asked.
"How do you mean?"
"You can't go on standing like that in the hall as if you were eavesdropping. The servants will be coming through presently."
"You are right, Lou," he said, "as usual. I'll go into the dining-room. I could hear there if anything suspicious was happening in the library."
"You are not afraid, Luke?"
"For Uncle Rad, you mean?"
"Of course."
"I hardly know whether I am or not. No," he added decisively after a moment's hesitation, "I am not afraid of violence – the fellow whom we saw in the park did not look that sort."
He led Louisa back into the dining-room, where a couple of footmen were clearing away the luncheon things. The melancholy Parker placed cigar box and matches on a side table and then retired – silent and with a wealth of reproach expressed in his round, beady eyes.
Soon Luke and Louisa were alone. He smoked and she sat in a deep arm-chair close to him saying nothing, for both knew what went on in the other's mind.
Close on an hour went by and then the tinkle of a distant bell broke the silence. Voices were heard somewhat louder of tone in the library, and Lord Radclyffe's sounded quite distinct and firm.
"I'll see you again to-morrow," he said, "at Mr. – Tell me the name and address again, please."
The door leading from library to hall was opened. A footman helped the stranger on with coat and hat. Then the street door banged to again, and once more the house lapsed into silence and gloom.
"I think I had better go now."
Louisa rose, and Luke said in matter-of-fact tones:
"I'll put you into a cab."
"No," she said, "I prefer to walk. I am going straight back to the Langham. Will you go to the Ducies' At Home to-night?"
"Yes," he said, "just to see you."
"You'll know more by then."
"I shall know all there is to know."
"Luke," she said, "you are not afraid?"
It was the second time she had put the question to him, but this time its purport was a very different one. He understood it nevertheless, for he replied simply:
"Only for you."
"Why for me?"
"Because, Lou, you are just all the world to me – and a man must feel a little afraid when he thinks he may lose the world."
"Not me, Luke," she said, "you would not lose me – whatever happened."
"Let me get you a cab."
He was English, you see, and could not manage to say anything just then. The floodgates of sentiment might burst asunder now with the slightest word uttered that was not strictly commonplace. Louisa understood, else she had not loved him as she did. It never occurred to her to think that he was indifferent. Nay more! his sudden transition from sentiment to the calling of a cab – from sentiment to the trivialities of life pleased her in its very essence of incongruity.
"I said I would walk," she reminded him, smiling.
Then she gave him her hand. It was still gloveless and he took it in his, turning the palm upward so that he might bury his lips in its delicately perfumed depths. His kiss almost scalded her flesh, his lips were burning hot. Passion held in check will consume with inward fire, whilst its expression often cools like the Nereid's embrace.
He went to the door with her and watched her slender, trim figure walking rapidly away until it disappeared round the corner of the Square.
When he turned back into the hall, he found himself face to face with Lord Radclyffe. Not Uncle Rad – but an altogether different man, an old man now with the cynical lines round the mouth accentuated and deepened into furrows, the eyes hollow and colourless, the shoulders bent as if under an unbearable load.
"Uncle Rad," said Luke speaking very gently, forcing his voice to betray nothing of anxiety or surprise, "can I do anything for you?"
But even at sight of his nephew, of the man who had hitherto always succeeded in dissipating by his very presence every cloud on the misanthrope's brow, even at sight of him Lord Radclyffe seemed to shrink within himself, his face became almost ashen in its pallor, and lines of cruel hardness quite disfigured his mouth.
"I want to be alone to-day," he said dryly. "Tell them to send me up some tea in the afternoon. I'll go to my room now – I shan't want any dinner."
"But, sir, won't you – ?"
"I want to be alone to-day," the old man reiterated tonelessly, "and to be left alone."
"Very well, sir."
Lord Radclyffe walked slowly toward the staircase. Luke – his heart torn with anxiety and sorrow – saw how heavy was the old man's step, how listless his movements. The younger man's instinct drew him instantly to the side of the elder. He placed an affectionate hand on his uncle's shoulder.
"Uncle Rad," he said appealingly, "can't I do anything for you?"
Lord Radclyffe turned and for a moment his eyes softened as they rested on the face he loved so well. His wrinkled hand sought the firm, young one which lingered on his shoulder. But he did not take it, only put it gently aside, then said quietly:
"No, my boy, there's nothing you can do, except to leave me alone."
Then he went up stairs and shut himself up in his own room, and Luke saw him no more that day.
CHAPTER IX
WHICH TELLS OF THE INEVITABLE RESULT
And now a month and more had gone by, and the whole aspect of the world and of life was changed for Luke. Not for Louisa, because she, woman-like, had her life in love and love alone. Love was unchanged, or if changed at all it was ennobled, revivified, purified by the halo of sorrow and of abnegation which glorified it with its radiance.
For Luke the world had indeed changed. With the advent of Philip de Mountford that spring afternoon into the old house in Grosvenor Square, life for the other nephew – for Luke, once the dearly loved – became altogether different.
That one moment of softness, when Lord Radclyffe – a bent and broken old man – went from the library up the stairs to his own room, determined to be alone, and gently removed Luke's affectionate hand from his own bowed shoulders, that one moment of softness was the last that passed between uncle – almost father – and nephew. After that, coldness and cynicism; the same as the old man had meted out to every one around him – save Luke – for years past. Now there was no exception. Coldness and cynicism to all; and to the intruder, the new comer, to Philip de Mountford, an unvarying courtesy and constant deference that at times verged on impassive submission.
And the change, I must own, did not come gradually. Have I not said that only a month had gone by, and Arthur's son, from the land of volcanoes and earthquakes, had already conquered all that he had come to seek? He who had been labelled an impostor and a blackmailer took – after that one interview – his place in the old man's mind, if not in his heart. Heaven only knows – for no one else was present at that first interview – what arguments he held, what appeals he made. He came like a thief, bribing his way into his uncle's presence, and stayed like a dearly loved son, a master in the house.
And Luke was shut out once and for all from Lord Radclyffe's mind and heart. Can you conceive that such selfless affection as the older man bore to the younger can live for a quarter of a century and die in one hour? Yet so it seemed. Luke was shut out from that innermost recess in Uncle Rad's heart which he had occupied, undisputed, from childhood upward. Now he only took his place amongst the others; with Jim and Edie and Frank, children of the younger brother, of no consequence in the house of the reigning peer.
Luke with characteristic pride – characteristic indolence, mayhap, where his own interests were at stake – would not fight for his rightful position – his by right of ages, twenty years of affection, of fidelity, and comradeship.
The