Devil's Dice. Le Queux William
seemed plain and middle-aged, and well-dressed women looked dowdy, but since her marriage she had become just a trifle too smart for my taste.
Dora was no doubt pleased that her sister had taken me off, so that she might exchange confidences with Jack, but I confess I was not one of the drivelling crowd that admired Fyneshade’s wife.
When I had known her at Blatherwycke, in the days before her presentation, she had been as frank and merry as her sister, but since her union with the Earl she had sadly changed, acquiring an artificiality and a penchant for flirtation, apparently living only to be flattered and admired. True, she moved in one of the most select circles, and no really smart house-party was complete without her; but, knowing her as intimately as I did, it was not surprising perhaps that I had long ago arrived at the conclusion that her gaiety and recklessness were feigned, and I felt some sorrow for her.
She was lounging back talking nonsense at the highest possible speed, for ever exchanging greetings and salutations in the same breath, and as I calmly contemplated her I wondered whether her domestic unhappiness was the sole cause of the secret trouble which she strove to mask.
“Jack and Dora are really too absurd,” she was saying, glancing over to them. “They are childishly fond of one another, but what the result will be I dread to think.”
“The result? Why, marriage,” I said laughing.
She shrugged her shoulders, causing the diamonds at her white throat to sparkle, elevated her dark arched brows, and exclaimed:
“Of course Jack is popular, and has a fair income, and everybody likes him, but Ma is absolutely determined that Dora shall marry a title.”
“Which means a loveless union with an elderly husband, and no happiness within her own home – eh?”
She looked at me inquiringly, and her lips quivered slightly.
“You are cruel, Stuart,” she answered seriously. “You mean that I am an illustration of the victim of a loveless marriage.”
I nodded. Then I said: “We are such old acquaintances, Mabel, that I feel myself permitted to speak candidly. I have watched you for a long time, and I know that you do not, you cannot love Fyneshade; you are unhappily married, and all the pleasure of life lies beyond your own home. Gossips’ tongues try to wound your reputation – well, that’s not my affair, but – ”
“Gossips’ tongues!” she echoed hoarsely. “What care I for the lies of scandalmongers? True, men admire me, flatter me, and say pretty things that please me, but surely I am mistress of my own actions? If I chose to flirt with my coachman it would be of no concern to anybody except Fyneshade.”
“You misconstrue my meaning,” I said quietly. “It was my intention to ask you whether you would desire Dora to lead a life similar to yours, or whether you would allow her to seek happiness with the man she loves.”
In hesitation she opened and closed her fan. At last, in a harsh, strained voice, quite unusual to her, she answered:
“Now that you have spoken so plainly, Stuart, I am compelled to admit the truth,” and with a sigh she continued: “You are quite right when you say that mine was a loveless marriage, but even you cannot imagine how bitter is my misery. Once I was as happy as my sister there, and believed that I could love a man as devotedly as she does Jack, but my mother led me to believe that wealth brought love, and I sacrificed myself to rescue her from her creditors. The result has been three long years of wretchedness and duplicity, of sorrow, misery, and despair. Wealth and luxury are mine, it is true, and my diamonds are the envy of the feminine half of London, but – but I have no happiness, no object in life, no love. I hate everything, and most of all I hate myself.”
“And why do you hate yourself?” I asked sympathetically.
“For reasons known only to myself,” she answered evasively. “Ah! you little dream, Stuart, what a life mine is – at least, the life I am leading now. Another year of it will kill me, or drive me mad.”
“Am I then to understand by your words that there is truth in this gossip about Prince Starikoff and yourself at Royat?” I asked seriously.
She drew a deep breath and bit her lip. I saw I had approached a delicate subject. Her words had aroused my suspicions that there was some foundation for the scandal freely circulated regarding a fracas that had taken place at the little French watering-place of Royat, a month or so before, between Fyneshade and a Russian Prince named Starikoff.
“You have no right, Stuart, to question me upon my private affairs,” she said frigidly. “Les calomnies n’ennuient jamais. I know the Prince, it is true, but I had no intention that my words should convey the meaning you choose to put upon them, and I have no wish that we should pursue the subject further.”
“I bow to your desire, of course,” I said. “My sole object in speaking to you thus was to urge you to plead Jack’s cause with your mother. I know well enough that Lord Wansford admires Dora, and that Lady Stretton looks upon him with favour. But surely his is an unenviable reputation. If you were a man I could speak more plainly, but to you I can only say that I would never allow a sister of mine to become his wife. I would rather see her marry an honest working man.”
The Countess’ seriousness suddenly vanished, and she laughed lightly as she answered:
“I really believe that after all, dear old boy, you are in love with Dora yourself. I know you used to be rather fond of her in the old days, and am inclined to think that in reality you are Jack’s rival.”
“No, not at all,” I said. “Bethune is my friend; so is Dora. I merely desire to see them happy, and if I can save your sister from a life of wretchedness with Wansford, I shall feel that at least I have acted as her friend.”
“Rubbish!” the Countess exclaimed impatiently. “Marriage nowadays is a mere commercial transaction; very few people marry for love. An affectionate husband is apt to be jealous, and jealousy is decidedly bourgeois. Besides, Jack hasn’t the means to keep Dora as she should be kept. It would mean a red-brick villa in a remote suburb with a couple of servants, I suppose. Why, she would leave him in six months.”
“No,” I said. “Surely love and sufficient to provide comfort is better than loathing and thirty thousand a year! Scarcely a man in England or America is better known than Jack Beaune.”
“I was only aggravating you,” she said with a tantalising smile a moment later. “I quite admit the force of your argument, but to argue is useless. Mother has set her mind upon Lord Wansford, and, although I should like to see Dora marry Jack, I’m afraid there’s but little chance of the match – unless, of course, they throw over the maternal authority altogether and – ”
The words froze upon her lips. With her eyes fixed beyond me, she started suddenly and turned deathly pale, as if she had seen an apparition. Alarmed at her sudden change of manner, and fearing that she was about to faint, I turned in my chair, and was just in time to come face to face with a tall military-looking man who was sauntering by with a fair, insipid-looking girl in pink upon his arm.
For an instant our eyes met. It was a startling encounter. We glared at each other for one brief second, both open-mouthed in amazement. Then, smiling cynically at Mabel, he hurried away, being lost next second in the laughing, chattering crowd.
I had recognised the face instantly. It was the mysterious individual who had met me at Richmond and conducted me to Sybil! My first impulse was to spring up and dash after him, but, noticing the Countess was on the point of fainting, I rushed across to Dora and borrowed her smelling-salts. These revived my companion, who fortunately had not created a scene by losing consciousness, but the unexpected encounter had evidently completely unnerved her, for she was trembling violently, and in her eyes was a wild, haggard look, such as I had never before witnessed.
“That man recognised you,” I said a few moments later. “Who is he?”
“What man?” she gasped with well-feigned surprise. “I was not aware that any man had noticed me.”
“The fellow who passed with a fair girl in pink.”
“I