"N--o," he said, as if awaking suddenly. "Let us go outside."

He caught up a fur cloak that was lying on a bench, and disregarding her laughing remonstrance that the thing did not belong to her, he put it round her and led her on to the terrace. She looked up at him just as they were pa.s.sing out of the stream of light, saw how set and hard his face was, how straight the lips and sombre the eyes, and her hand, as it rested lightly on his arm, quivered like a leaf in autumn. When they had got into the open air, he threw back his head and drew a long breath.

"Yes; it was hot in there," he said.

They walked slowly up and down for a minute, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing similar couples; then suddenly, as if the presence of others, the sound of their voices and laughter, jarred upon him, Stafford said:

"Shall we go into the garden? It is quiet there--and I want to speak to you."

"If you like," she said, in a low voice, which she tried to make as languid as usual; but her heart began to beat fiercely and her lips trembled, and he might have heard her breath coming quickly had he not been absorbed in his own reflections.

They went down the steps and into the semi-darkness of the beautiful garden. The silence was broken by the hum of the distant voices and the splashing of a fountain which reflected the electric light as the spray rose and fell with rhythmic regularity. Stafford stopped at this and looked at the reflection of the stars in the shallow water. Something in its simplicitude and the quiet, coming after the glitter and the noise of the ball-room, called up the remembrance of Herondale, and the quiet, love-laden hours he had spent there with Ida. The thought went through him with a sharp pain, and he thrust it away from him as one thrusts away a threatening weakness.

"What is it you wanted to say to me?" asked Maude, not coldly or indifferently as she would have asked the question of another man, but softly, dreamily.

He walked on with her a few paces, looking straight before him as if he were trying to find words suitable for the answer; then he turned his face to her and looked at her steadily, though his head was burning and the plash of the fountain sounded like the roar of the sea in his ears.

"I wonder whether you could guess?" he said, as he thought of her father's words, his a.s.sertion that Stafford was to be his son-in-law.

"I suppose you must."

Her gaze was as steady as his, but her lips quivered slightly.

"I would rather you should tell me than that I should I guess," she said in a low voice. "I might be wrong."

He was not in a condition to notice the significance of her last words, and he went on with a kind of desperation.

"I brought you here into the garden, Miss Falconer, to ask you if you'd be my wife."

They had stopped just within the radius of an electric light, held aloft by a grinning satyr, and Stafford saw her face grow paler and paler in the seconds that followed the momentous question. He could see her bosom heaving under the half-open fur cloak, felt her hand close for an instant on his arm.

"Do you wish me to say 'Yes'?" she asked in a low voice.

The red flooded Stafford's face for a moment, and his eyes fell under her fixed regard.

"What answer does one generally hope for when one puts such a question?" he said, trying to smile. "I want you to be my wife, and I hope, with all my heart, that you will say 'Yes.'"

"'With all your heart,'" she echoed, slowly, almost inaudibly. "'With all your heart.' With all mine, I answer 'Yes.'"

As she murmured the words--and, like that of most cold women when they are intensely moved, her voice could be exquisitely sweet with its thrill of pa.s.sion, all the sweeter for its rarity--she insensibly drew nearer to him and her hand stole to his shoulder. Her eyes were lifted to his, and they shone with the love that was coursing through her veins, almost stopping the beating of her heart. Love radiated from her as the light radiated from the lamp the mocking satyr held above them.

Stafford was at his best and worst, a man and not a block of stone and wood, and touched, almost fired, by the pa.s.sion so close to him, he put his arm round her waist and bent his head until his lips nearly touched hers.

Her eyes closed and she was surrendering herself to the kiss, when suddenly she drew her head back, and, keeping him from her, looked up at him. "Is it with all your heart?" she whispered. "You have never spoken to me of--love before. Is it with all your heart?"

His brow contracted in a frown, he set his teeth hard. If he were to lie, 'twere better that he lied thoroughly and well; better that his sacrifice should be complete and effectual. Scarcely knowing what he said, what he did, with the fumes of the champagne confusing his brain, the misery of his lost love racking his heart, he said, hoa.r.s.ely:

"I did not know--till to-night. You can trust me. I ask you to be my wife--I will be true to you--it is with all my heart!"

If Jove laughs at lovers' perjuries, the angels must weep at such false oaths as this. Even as he spoke the words, Stafford remembered the "I love you?" he had cried to Ida as he knelt at her feet, and he shuddered as Maude drew his head down and his lips met hers.

Half an hour later they went slowly up the steps again. Stafford's head was still burning, he still felt confused, like a man moving in a dream. Since he had kissed her he had said very little; and the silences had been broken more often by Maude than by him. She had told him in a low voice, tremulous with love, and hesitating now and again, how she had fallen in love with him the day he had rowed her on the lake; how she had struggled and striven against the feeling, and how it had conquered her. How miserable she had been, though she had tried to hide her misery, lest he should never come to care for her, and she should have to suffer that most merciless of all miseries--unrequited love. She seemed as if she scarcely wanted him to speak, as if she took it for granted that he had spoken the truth, and that he loved her; and as if it were a joy to her to bare her heart, that he might see how devotedly it throbbed for him and for him alone. Every now and then Stafford spoke a few words in response. He scarcely knew what he said, he could not have told what they were ten minutes after they were said; he sat with his arm round her like a man playing a part mechanically.

In the same condition he moved beside her now as arm and arm they entered the house, he looking straight before him with a set face, a forced smile, she with now raised, now drooping eyes glowing with triumph, a flush on her usually pale face, her lips apart and tremulous. The ball was breaking up, some of the women had already gone to the drawing-room or their own apartments; a stream of men were making their way to the billiard-room from which came the popping of champagne-corks and the hissing of syphons.

As they entered the hall, Howard came lounging out, in his leisurely way, from the drawing-room, and at sight of him Stafford seemed to awake, to realise what he had done and how he stood. He looked from Howard to Maude, then, he said:

"Howard, I want you to congratulate me. Miss Falconer--Maude--has promised to be my wife."

Howard did not start, but he stared in silence for an instant, then his eyelids flickered, and forcing the astonishment from his face, he took Stafford's left hand and shook it, and bowed to Maude.

"I do congratulate you with all my heart, my dear Stafford, and I hope you'll both be as happy as the happiest pair in a fairy story."

She drew her arm from Stafford's.

"I will go up now," she said. "Good-night!"

Stafford stood until she had got as far as the bend of the stairs; then Howard, who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger.

There are moments when the part of even one's best friend is silence, blindness. Howard turned aside, and Stafford went on slowly, with a kind of enforced steadiness, to the billiard-room. While Howard, with dismay and apprehension, was looking after him, he heard "Mr. Howard!"

called softly, mockingly, from the stairs, and looking up, saw Maude Falconer leaning over, with her arm extended, her hand open.

He understood in a moment, and, removing his ring as he ran up the stairs, put it in the soft, pink palm. She gave a little triumphant, mocking laugh, her hand closed over the ring, and then she glided away from him.

The smoking-room was crowded as Stafford made his way in. Through the clouds of smoke he saw his father standing at one end, surrounded by the money-spinning crew, Falconer seated in a chair near him with a black cigar between his lips. The group were laughing and talking loudly, and all had gla.s.ses in their hands. Some of the younger men, who had just come from the hall-room, were adding their laughter and chatter to the noise. Dazed and confused, half mad with rage and despair, with a sense that Fate was joining her mocking laughter with that of the men round him. Stafford took a gla.s.s of wine from the butler who advanced with it, and drinking it off, held it out to be refilled. The man refilled it twice, and Stafford, his eyes aflame, almost pushed his way through the various groups to where his father stood.

"I have come for your congratulation, sir," he said, in a voice which, though not loud, was so clear as to break through the row. "Miss Falconer has promised to be my wife!"

A silence, so sudden as to be startling, fell upon the hot and crowded room; then, as Sir Stephen grasped his son's hand, a din of voices arose, an excited buzz of congratulations and good wishes. Stafford faced them all, his face pale and set, his lips curved with a forced smile, his eyes flashing, but lit with a sombre fire. There was a smile on his lips, a false amiability in his eyes, but there was so much of madness in his heart that he was afraid lest at any moment he should dash the gla.s.s to the ground and break out into cursing.

An hour later he found himself in his room, and waving Measom away from him, he went to the window and flung it wide open, and stood there with his hands against his throbbing brow; and though no word came from his parched lips, his heart cried:

"Ida! Ida!" with all the agony of despair.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The hours dragged along as Stafford faced the tragedy of his life. As he paced the room or flung himself into a chair, with his head bowed in his hands, the effects of the wine he had taken, the suppressed excitement under which he had laboured, pa.s.sed away, and in the reaction his brain cleared and he began to realise the terrible import of the step he had taken, the extent of the sacrifice he had made. His own life was wrecked and ruined irreparably; not only his own, but that of the girl he loved.

The step he had taken was not only irreparable but irrevocable; he could not go back. He had asked Maude Falconer to be his wife, he had spoken words which must have sounded to her as words of love, he had kissed her lips. In a word, he was pledged to her, and the pledge could not be broken.

And Ida! What should he do in regard to her? He had promised that if his feelings underwent any change towards her he would not go and tell her. And at that moment, he felt that the promise had not been a vain one; for he knew that he could not go to her, that at sight of her his resolution would melt like snow in the sun, that his love for her would sweep him away on a torrent of pa.s.sion, and that he would be as false to Maude Falconer as he had been to Ida.

And yet he could not leave her, desert her--yes, that was the word!--without making some sign, without speaking one word, not of excuse, but of farewell. What could he say to her? He could not tell her the truth; for his father's sake that must never be divulged; he could give her no explanation, must permit her to think him base and faithless and dishonorable. There was only one thing he could do, and that was to write to her. But what could he say?

He went to his writing-table and took up a pen. His hand was cold as ice and shaking, and he held it before him until it grew steadier. At the best of times, Stafford was not much of a letter-writer; one does not learn the epistolatory art either at public schools or the 'varsities, and hitherto Stafford's letter-writing had been confined to the sending or accepting of invitations, a short note about some meet, or horse dealing. How was he to address her? She was his dearest still, the only woman in the world he had loved or ever would love, but he dared not call her so, dared not tell her so. He wrote her name, but the sweet word seemed to look up at him reproachfully, accusingly; and though he had written only that name, he tore up several sheets of paper, and at last, in desperation, scarcely knowing what he was writing, he wrote, quickly, hurriedly and without pausing, the following lines: