In an instant he grows confused. Something in the lovely horror of her eyes undoes him. Only for an instant--after that he turns the momentary confusion to good account.

"Ah! you did see her, then, poor girl!" says he. "Well, I'm sorry about that for her sake."

"Why for her sake?" still regarding him with that charming disdain. "For your own, perhaps, but why for hers?"

Beauclerk pauses: then rising suddenly, stands before her. Grief and gentle indignation sit upon his ma.s.sive brow. He looks the very incarnation of injured rect.i.tude.

"Do you know, Joyce, you have always been ready to condemn, to misjudge me," says he in a low, hurt tone. "I have often noticed it, yet have failed to understand why it is. I was right, you see, when I told myself last night and this morning that you were harboring unkindly thoughts toward me. You have not been open with me, you have been willfully secretive, and, believe me, that is a mistake. Candor, complete and perfect, is the only great virtue that will steer one clear through all the shoals and rocks of life. Be honest, above board, and, I can a.s.sure you, you will never regret it. You accused me just now of insincerity.

Have you been sincere?"

There is a dead pause. He allows it to last long enough to make it dramatic, and to convince himself he has impressed her, and then, with a very perceptible increase of dignified pain in his voice, he goes on.

"I feel I ought not to explain under the circ.u.mstances, but as it is to you"--heavy emphasis, and a second affected silence. "You have heard, perhaps, of Miss Maliphant's cousin in India?"

"No," says Joyce, after racking her brain in vain for some memory of the cousin question. And, indeed, it would have been nothing short of a miracle if she could have remembered anything about that apocryphal person.

"You will understand that I speak to you in the strictest confidence,"

says Beauclerk, earnestly: "I wouldn't for anything you could offer me, that it should get back to that poor girl's ears that I had been discussing her and the most sacred feelings of her heart. Well, there is a cousin, and she--you may have noticed that she and I were great friends?"

"Yes," says Joyce, whose heart is beating now to suffocation. Oh! has she wronged him? Does she still wrong him? Is this vile, suspicious feeling within her one to be encouraged? Is all this story of his, this simple explanation--false--false?

"I was, indeed, a sort of confidant of hers. Poor dear girl! it was a relief to her to talk to somebody."

"There were others."

"But none here who knew him."

"You knew him then? Is his name Maliphant, too?" asks Joyce, ashamed of her cross-examination, yet driven to it by some power beyond her control.

"You mustn't ask me that," says Beauclerk playfully. "There are some things I must keep even from you. Though you see I go very far to satisfy your unjust suspicions of me. You can, however, guess a good deal; you--saw her crying?"

"She was not crying," says Joyce slowly, a little puzzled. Miss Maliphant had seemed at the moment in question well pleased.

"No! Not when you saw her? Ah! that must have been later then," with a sigh, "you see now I am betraying more than I should. However, I can depend upon your silence. It will be a small secret between you and me."

"And Miss Maliphant," says Joyce, coldly. "As for me, what is the secret?"

"You haven't understood? Not really? Well, between you and me and the wall," with delightful gaiety, "I think she gives a thought or two to that cousin. I fancy," whispering, "she is even in--eh? you know."

"I don't," says Joyce slowly, who is now longing to believe in him, and yet is held steadily backward by some strong feeling.

"I believe she is in love with him," says Beauclerk, still in a mysterious whisper. "But it is a sore subject," with an expressive frown. "Not best pleased when it is mentioned to her. Mauvais sujet, you understand. But girls are often foolish in that way. Better say nothing about it."

"I shall say nothing, of course," says Joyce. "Why should I? It is nothing to me, though I am sorry for her."

Yet as she says this, a doubt arises in her mind as to whether she need be sorry. Is there a cousin in India? Could that big, jolly, lively girl, who had come into the conservatory with Beauclerk last night, with the light of triumph in her eyes, be the victim of an unhappy love affair? Should she write and ask her if there is a cousin in India? Oh, no, no! She could not do that! How horrible, how hateful to distrust him like this! What a detestable mind must be hers. And besides, why dwell so much upon it. Why not accept him as a pleasing acquaintance. One with whom to pa.s.s a pleasant hour now and then. Why ever again regard him as a possible lover!

A little shudder runs through her. At this moment it seems to her that she could never really have so regarded him. And yet only last night----

And now. What is it? Does she still doubt? Will that strange, curious, tormenting feeling that once she felt for him return no more. Is it gone forever? Oh! that it might be so!

CHAPTER XXII.

"So over violent, or over civil!"

"A man so various."

"Dull looking day," says d.i.c.ky Browne, looking up from his broiled kidney to glare indignantly through the window at the gray sky.

"It can't be always May," says Beauclerk cheerfully, whose point it is to take ever a lenient view of things. Even to heaven itself he is kind, and holds out a helping hand.

"I expect it is we ourselves who are dull," says Lady Baltimore, looking round the breakfast table, where now many vacant seats make the edges bare. Yesterday morning Miss Maliphant left. To-day the Clontarfs, and one or two strange men from the barracks in the next town. Desertion indeed seems to be the order of the day. "We grow very small," says she.

"How I miss people when they go away."

"Do you mean that as a liberal bribe for the getting rid of the rest of us," says d.i.c.ky, who is now devoting himself to the hot scones. "If so, let me tell you it isn't good enough. I shall stay here until you choose to cross the channel. I don't want to be missed."

"That will be next week," says Lady Baltimore. "I do beseech all here present not to forsake me until then."

"I must deny your prayer," says Lady Swansdown. "These tiresome lawyers of mine say they must see me on Thursday at the latest."

"I shall meet you in town at Christmas, however," says Lady Baltimore, making the remark a question.

"I hardly think so. I have promised the Barings to join them in Italy about then."

"Well, here then in February."

Lady Swansdown smiles at her hostess, but makes no audible reply.

"I suppose we ought to do something to-day," says Lady Baltimore presently, in a listless tone. It is plain to everybody, however, that in reality she wants to do nothing. "Suggest something, d.i.c.ky."

"Skittles," says that youth, without hesitation. Very properly, however, no one takes any notice of him.

"I was thinking that if we went to 'Connor's Cross,' it would be a nice drive," says Lady Baltimore, still struggling with her duties as a hostess. "What do you say, Beatrice?"

"I pray you excuse me," says Lady Swansdown. "As I leave to-morrow, I must give the afternoon to the answering of several letters, and to other things besides."

"Connor's Cross," says Joyce, idly. "I've so often heard of it. Yet, oddly enough, I have never seen it; it is always the way, isn't it, whenever one lives very close to some celebrated spot."

"Celebrated or not, it is at least lovely," says Lady Baltimore. "You really ought to see it."

"I'll drive you there this afternoon, Miss Kavanagh," says Beauclerk, in his friendly way, that in public has never a tincture of tenderness about it. "We might start after luncheon. It is only about ten miles off. Eh?" to Baltimore.

"Ten," briefly.

"I am right then," equably; "we might easily do it in a little over an hour."