"I am grateful to you," he answered, with that air of finished politeness which makes the best graces of a young man seem crude, and which Bettina was not too ignorant to appreciate at its proper value.

"I have known Horace as child and boy and man--if he may yet be called a man," he said, with a light touch of scorn. "You have known him in one capacity and state only--that of a lover, a _role_ he can no doubt play very prettily, and one in which, despite his youth, he is far from being unpractised. He has been in love oftener than it behooves me to say or you to hear--quite harmless affairs, of course, but they prove to one who has watched him as I have that his nature is fickle and capricious. I confess that when I heard you say, just now, that his letters of late had been rarer and less ardent, I could not wholly attribute it to the reason which so quickly satisfied you.

As a rule, these intensely ardent feelings are not of long duration, and I know well both the intensity and the brevity of Horace's attacks of love. It was for this very reason that I so resented the idea of his marrying without my advice. I foresaw that he would soon weary of any woman. All the more reason, therefore, for his choosing one who was suited to him, apart from the matter of his loving her. I knew he had not the staying quality--that he was quite incapable of a sustained affection. I therefore considered his taste in the matter less than my own. As he was my heir in the event of my not marrying, I felt that I had the right to demand that he should marry suitably to his position."

"I regret that he should have made an engagement which has disappointed you," said Bettina, a slight curl at the corners of her lips.

"I regret it also; but you may remember that at the beginning of this interview I spoke of this mistake on your part and on his as great, though not perhaps irreparable."

He was looking at her keenly, and he saw that his words had no effect upon her except to mystify her.

"I do not see any way to its reparation," she said, and was about to continue, when he interrupted her.

"I have pointed out the way--a rupture of the engagement by mutual consent."

"A consent that he would never give," said Bettina, with a certain pride of confidence.

"And you?" he asked.

"Nor I either," she said, "unless I were convinced that he wished it."

"It would perhaps be not impossible to convince you of that, granted a little time," said Lord Hurdly. "But, apart from his wish, have you no consideration for his interest? His position in diplomacy is at present insignificant, but he has talents and a chance to rise, unless that chance be utterly frustrated by his embarra.s.sing himself with a family--a condition that would be death to his career. Ask any one you choose, and they will tell you that there cannot be two opinions about this. Besides, through my help he has been able to live like a man of fortune. His allowance, however, will be stopped on the day of his marriage, if he persists in such a course. If he abandons it, he will find himself with the princ.i.p.al as well as the interest at his disposal. So situated, he has every chance to rise.

Under the other conditions, he inevitably falls. What would become of him ultimately is too dreary a line of conjecture to dwell upon."

Bettina's face was paler still. The tears sprang to her eyes--tears of mortification and keen regret. The thought of her mother pierced through her, and the consciousness that she had no longer the refuge of that gentle heart to cast herself upon almost overcame her. Pride lent her aid, however, and she rallied quickly.

"You have fully demonstrated to me," she said, "that I have injured your cousin in promising to marry him. I did it in ignorance, however. With the facts before me which you have just given, I should perhaps have acted differently. Regret now, however, is useless."

"On the contrary, this is one of the rare cases in which regret is not useless. The reparation of your mistake is in your own hands."

The possibility of doing what he urged flashed through Bettina's mind. Horace would certainly be infinitely better off without her, in every rational and material sense; and at this stage of Bettina's development the rational and material were predominant. But what of her, apart from Horace? This thought found vent in words.

"You have been looking at this subject from your own point of view,"

she said, "and perhaps naturally. I must, however, think of an aspect of the case in which you have no interest. I am absolutely alone in the world, and if, for your cousin's sake, I made this sacrifice--"

In spite of herself her voice faltered.

Lord Hurdly drew his chair a little nearer to her. His eyes were fixed upon her with a yet more intent gaze as he said, with directness and decision:

"You are quite mistaken. It is this aspect of the case which concerns me chiefly. If, as is undoubtedly true, the prevention of this most mistaken marriage would be an advantage to Horace, to you it may be a far greater gain, and to me it may be the fulfilment of all that I have ever desired in life."

"What do you mean?" she said, bewildered.

"I mean that the supreme desire of my heart is, and has been from the moment my eyes rested on you, to make you Lady Hurdly absolutely and at once, instead of your waiting for a name and position which, after all, may never come to you."

Her heart beat so that her breathing came in smothered gasps. The piercing demand of his eyes was almost terrifying to her. She saw that he was absolutely in earnest, and the commiseration which she felt for Horace struggled with the dazzling temptation which this opportunity offered to that strong ambition which was so great an element in her essential nature.

"Do not be shocked or startled by the suddenness of my proposal," he said. "I trust that you will come to see that it is eminently wise and reasonable. When I said the marriage was an unsuitable one, I was thinking more of you than of Horace. Your beauty, your manner, your voice, your words, your whole ego and personality, show you to have been born for a great position. It is a case of manifest destiny. The fortune and the social rank that I can bestow are all too little for you; I should like to be able to put a queen's crown on your beautiful head. But such as I am--a man who has made his impression on the current history of his country, and who, though no longer young in the crude sense that counts only by months and years, is still by no means old--and such things as I have and can command, I lay at your feet, begging you humbly to impart to them a value which they have never had before, by accepting them and becoming the sharer of my name, my position, and my fortune, and the mistress of my heart."

He had risen and was standing in front of her with the resolution of a strong purpose in his eyes. But she could not meet them, those dominating, searching eyes. The thoughts that his words had given rise to were too agitating, too uncertain, too tormenting to her. The thought of giving Horace up pained her more than she would have believed, while the vision of the grandeur so urged upon her, which not ten minutes gone she had seen dashed like a full beaker from her thirsty lips, tormented her as well. It was to her a vast sacrifice to think of resigning such possibilities, yet at the first she had no other thought but to resign them. The arguments for Horace's future career which had been urged upon her also played their part in her consciousness now, and the seething confusion of images in her brain made her senses swim.

Lord Hurdly must have seen her agitation, for he hastened to say:

"I have been too hasty. You must forgive me. Do not try to answer me at present. I see that you are overwrought. Let me beseech you to rest a little while. I will send for the housekeeper."

"No, no! I must go," she answered, starting to her feet. But she had overestimated her strength. She sank back in her chair.

He went himself and brought her a gla.s.s of wine, talking to her with a soothing rea.s.surance as she drank it. He reproached himself for having been too hurried, too rash, but pleaded the earnestness of his hopes as an excuse. When she had taken the wine she wanted to go, but he entreated her so humbly not to punish him too deeply for his fault that when he begged her to let him call the housekeeper to sit with her until luncheon, which he implored her to take before leaving, she acquiesced, too f.a.gged out mentally to take any decided position of her own.

To the housekeeper Lord Hurdly explained that this lady was in deep trouble--a fact sufficiently attested by her heavy mourning--and would like to rest awhile before eating some luncheon. Bettina saw herself regarded with a respectful awe which she had never had a taste of before. The housekeeper, with the sweetest of voices and kindest of manners, promised to do all in her power, and Lord Hurdly withdrew.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE SANK BACK IN HER CHAIR"]

Bettina could not talk. She lay back on the lounge and submitted to be gently fanned and having salts occasionally held to her nose. But all her effort was to compose her thoughts--a difficult attempt, as the image of her mother was the one which insisted on taking the pre-eminence in her mind. She ordered it down, with a sort of bitterness. Had her mother been alive, she would have gladly fled from this puzzle into which her life had tangled itself, and gone back to America to rest and mother-love. So she told herself, at least. But then followed the reflection that in her mother's death the refuge of love's calm and protection was gone from her forever, and that she must either remain in Europe under one or the other of the two conditions offered her, or else resign herself to the apathy of despair.

It was not in her to do this, and the brilliant possibilities which Lord Hurdly had suggested flashed into her mind, and so excited her that she suddenly rose to her feet and announced that her slight indisposition was past, asking the housekeeper to take her somewhere to rearrange her hair and prepare herself for luncheon.

Even had Bettina been the possessor of a happy heart which rejoiced in a fulfilled and contented love for the man she had promised to marry, the other, dominating side of her nature could not have been quite stifled as she walked through the halls and corridors of this magnificent mansion. These were things her imagination had always pictured as her proper position in life, and which the unregenerate heart within her had always craved. But how far beyond her ignorant dreams was the grand repose of this beautiful house! It was so much more than she had conceived that the new supply to her senses seemed, in a way, to create a new demand in them.

Never, perhaps, had she so appreciated what it must be to be a _grande dame_ as to-day, when she was on the point of refusing such an opportunity, though it was just within her grasp. For she had no idea but that she should refuse it, and this very consciousness made her more friendly in her feelings and actions toward Lord Hurdly than she would otherwise have been.

When she had adjusted her dress and smoothed her hair, before large mirrors which gave her a better view of her loveliness than she had ever had before, a servant summoned her to luncheon, and at the foot of the stairs she saw Lord Hurdly awaiting her.

So seen, a decided baldness, which she had not much noticed before, became evident, but there was a certain distinction in the man's general air which this rather seemed to heighten. His manner of delicate solicitude for her was the perfection of good-breeding, and when she answered him rea.s.suringly, and walked by his side to the dining-room, a sudden conviction seized her that she had come into her own--that this was the position for which she had been born, and that, independent of the fact that she had determined to decline it, it was her fate, which she could not escape. She tried to coax the belief that it was as Horace's wife that she would one day enjoy all these delights, but the thought eluded her. She could not see Horace in the seat now filled by his cousin. In imagination as well as in reality it was Lord Hurdly who occupied that seat.

This conviction, which every moment deepened, she could not shake off and could not account for. She had a feeling that it was forced upon her consciousness through some dominating power of Lord Hurdly's spirit over her own. She felt as if she were hypnotized. She wondered if it could be so, and if she would presently come to herself and find that it was all a delusion and she had never seen Lord Hurdly or his house, but was on her way to St. Petersburg to join Horace and settle down to a limited and economical way of living.

At this thought her heart fell. She had laid her hand upon this dazzling prize of worldly wealth and position. Could she let it go?

During luncheon no reference was made to the subject of their late conversation. The servants remained in the room, and Lord Hurdly talked of public and quite impersonal affairs. In so doing he showed a trenchant insight, a broad knowledge of the world, an undeniably powerful mentality, and a decided skill in the art of pleasing. If the tone of his talk was cynical, it found, for that very reason, all the clearer echo in Bettina's heart. A certain tendency to cynicism was inborn in her, and the bitterness she felt at the loss of her mother had accentuated this. What was the use of loving, she asked herself, when love must end like this? In her heart she pa.s.sionately hoped that she might never love again. And she had also a shrinking from being loved in any ardent manner that might make demands upon her which she could not respond to.

When the time came for Bettina to leave, she found that the cab in which she had come had been sent away, and, in its place, Lord Hurdly's brougham waited for her. He escorted her himself to the carriage door, and when the great footman who held it open touched his hat in silence as he took her orders, and then mounted beside his twin brother on the box and she was bowled away, on padded cushions from which emanated a delicious odor of fine leather, Bettina felt that, for the first time in her life, she was in her proper element.

The events of the morning seemed to her like some agitating dream.

She wondered how long it had been since she left her hotel, and tried to guess what time it was. As she did so, her eyes fell on the small clock, neatly encased in the leather upholstering of the carriage just in front of her. The fitness of this object and of everything about her gave her a delicious sense of adaptation to her environment which she had never had before.

When she got out at her hotel, the footman, with the same salute of ineffable respect, said that his lordship had told him to ask if she had any further orders for the carriage to-day or to-morrow. She declined the offer, but, none the less, she felt flattered by the attention.

Lord Hurdly's only further reference to their last conversation had been to ask her to pay his words the respect of a few days'

consideration at least. He had learned from her that Horace was unaware of her being in England, and that she had a whole week at her disposal before he would expect to meet her there. When he asked for a part of that week, in which to give him the opportunity to prove to her that her duty to Horace, as well as to herself, demanded the rupture of this mistaken engagement, she was sufficiently influenced by the subtlety of this appeal to grant his request.

To her surprise, several days went by, and he did not come to see her nor write. Every morning the carriage was sent to the hotel and the footman came to her door for orders, but she always answered that she did not require it. Every morning, also, came a lavish offering of flowers, the great exotic flowers which Bettina loved--huge, heavy-petalled roses and green translucent-looking orchids. But, except for these, he did not thrust himself upon her notice--a fact which during the first and second days she gave him the greatest credit for, but by the third had grown to feel a certain resentment at.

In the mean time there had followed her from home a letter from Horace. It was the coldest she had ever had from him, and set her to thinking deeply as to the possible cause of his coldness. Could it be, she asked herself, that Lord Hurdly was right in calling him capricious? Had he--as was possible, of course--cooled in his ardor for her, and come to see that this hasty engagement of his had been a great mistake, as she herself had come to see?

For this point, at least, Bettina had positively reached. Why, therefore, should she adhere to her engagement in the face of the knowledge that such an adherence would be to his disadvantage, no less than to hers?

These arguments would have quite prevailed with her but for one thing. This was the conviction, not yet changed, though somewhat shaken by Lord Hurdly's account of him, that Horace really loved her and would suffer in losing her.