The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
in the gallery above.
"Oh! Look, Aunt Milly!" she had said. "Hector is with the American I told you about in Paris. Do you see, going down to supper. Oh, isn't she pretty! and what jewels--look!"
And Lady Bracondale had moved forward in a manner quite foreign to her usual dignity to catch sight of them.
"It is the same woman he talked to at the opera last night," she said. "She is not an American, but a Mrs. Brown, an Australian millionaire's wife, we were told. She is certainly pretty. Oh--eh--you said Hector was devoted to her in Paris?"
"Why, of course! You can ask Jack."
"I do not think we need worry, though, dear, because I am happy to say Hector shows great signs of wishing to be with Morella."
And with this pleasing thought she had turned the conversation.
"I think we must go back now," said Theodora, after she had finished the last monster strawberry on her plate. "Josiah may be waiting for me."
Oh, she had been so happy! There was that sense vibrating through everything that he loved her, and they were together--but now it must end.
So they made their way up the stairs and back to the ballroom.
Mrs. Devlyn had abandoned Josiah, and he stood once more alone and supremely uncomfortable. A pang of remorse seized Theodora; she wished she had not stayed so long; she would not leave him again for a moment.
He had supped, it appeared, been hurried over it because Mrs. Devlyn wished to return, and was now feeling cross and tired. He was quite ready to leave when Theodora suggested it, and they said good-night to Hector and descended to find their carriage. But in that crowd it was not such an easy matter.
There was a long wait in the hall, where they were joined by the assiduous Marquis and Delaval Stirling. And Hector, from a place on the stairs, had all his feelings of jealous rage aroused again in watching them while he was detained where he was by his hostess.
Meanwhile, Sir Patrick Fitzgerald had gone about telling every one of the beauty of his new-found niece, and had brought his wife to be introduced to her just after Theodora had left.
Since his scapegrace brother was going to make such an advantageous marriage, and this niece had proved a lovely woman, and rich withal, he quite admitted the ties of blood were thicker than water.
Lady Ada was not of like opinion; she had enough relations of her own, and resented his having asked the Browns to Beechleigh for Whitsuntide.
"My party was all made up but for one extra man," she said, "whom I think I have found; and we did not need these people."
XXI
Lord Bracondale arrived at his sister's house in Charles Street about a quarter of an hour before her luncheon guests were due.
Anne rushed down to see him, meeting her husband on the stairs.
"Oh, don't come in yet, Billy, like a darling," she said, "I want to talk to Hector alone."
And the meek and fond Lord Anningford had obediently retired to his smoking-room.
"Well, Hector," she said, when she had greeted him, "and so you are going to the Fitzgeralds' for Whitsuntide, and not to Bracondale, mother tells me this morning. She is in the seventh heaven, taking it for a sign, as you had to manoeuvre so to be asked, that things are coming to a climax between you and Morella."
"Morella? Is she going?" said Hector, absently. He had quite forgotten that fact, so perfectly indifferent was he to her movements, and so completely had his own aims engrossed him.
"Why--dear boy!" Anne gasped. The whole scene, highly colored by repetition, had been recounted to her. How Morella had told him of her plans, and how he had at once got introduced to Lady Ada, and played his cards so skilfully that the end of the evening produced the invitation.
"Oh yes, of course, I remember she is going," he said, impatiently. "Anne, you haven't asked that beast Wensleydown to-day, have you?"
"No, dear. What made you think so?"
"I saw you talking to him in the park this morning, and I feared you might have. I shall certainly quarrel with him one of these days."
"You will have an opportunity, then, at Beechleigh, as he will be there. He is always with the Fitzgeralds," Anne said, and she tried to laugh. "But don't make a scandal, Hector."
She saw his eyes blaze.
"He is going there, is he?" he said, and then he stared out of the window.
Anne knew nothing of the relationship between Theodora and Sir Patrick. She never for a moment imagined the humble Browns would be invited to this exceptionally smart party. And yet she was uneasy. Why was Hector going? What plan was in his head? Not Morella, evidently. But she had never believed that would be his attraction.
And Hector was too preoccupied to enlighten her.
"Is mother coming to lunch?" he asked.
"Yes, by her own request. I had not meant to ask her--Oh, well, you know, she is never very pleased at your having new friends, and I thought she might fix Mrs. Brown with that stony stare she has sometimes, and we would be happier without her; but she was determined to come."
"It is just as well," he said, "because she will have to get accustomed to it. I shall ask my friends the Browns down to Bracondale on every occasion, and as she is hostess there the stony stare won't answer."
"Manage her as best you may," said Anne. "But you know how she can be now and then--perfectly annihilating to unfortunate strangers."
Hector's finely chiselled lips shut like a vise.
"We shall see," he said. "And who else have you got? None of the Harrowfield-Devlyn crew, I hope--"
"Hector, how strange you are! I thought you and Lady Harrowfield were the greatest friends, so of course I asked her. No one in London can make a woman's success as she can."
"Or mar it so completely if she takes a dislike! Have you ever heard of her doing a kindness to any one? I haven't!" he said, irritably.
Then he walked to the window and back quickly.
"I tell you I am sick of it all, Anne. Last night, whoever I spoke to had something vile to impute or insinuate about every one they mentioned; and Lady Harrowfield, with a record of her own worse than the lowest, rode a high horse of virtue, and was more spiteful than all the rest put together. I loathe them, the whole crew. What do they know of anything good or pure or fine? Painted Jezebels, the lot of them!"
"Hector!" almost screamed Lady Anningford. "What has come over you, my dear boy?"
"I will tell you," he said; and his voice, which had been full of passion, now melted into a tone of deep tenderness. "I love a woman whose pure goodness has taught me there are other possibilities in life beyond the aims of these vile harpies of our world--a woman whose very presence makes one long to be better and nobler, whose dear soul has not room for anything but kind and loving thoughts of sweetness and light. Oh, Anne, if I might have her for my own, and live away down at Bracondale far from all this, I think--I think I, too, could learn what heaven would mean on earth."
"Dear Hector!" said Anne, who was greatly moved. "Oh, I am so sorry for you! But what is to be done? She is married to somebody else, and you will only injure her and yourself if you see too much of her."
"I know," he said. "I realize it sometimes--this morning, for instance--and then--and then--"
He did not add that the thought of Lord Wensleydown and the rest swarming round Theodora drove him mad, deprived him of his power of reasoning, and filled