"And your silence--may I put the usual interpretation on it?"

"I suppose so," he said, shame-facedly. "Please don't think me ungracious," he added.

"You very dear person!" she cried; and after that they walked for fully five minutes without exchanging a word.

The matter had been decided and, according to their wont, there was no further manifestation, no further reference to it on either side. Each understood the other's emotions, and that sufficed.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Shall I put you into a hansom?" said Morgan, looking at his watch as they pa.s.sed out of the park. "It is getting on towards two."

"Mayn't I come in and smoke a cigarette?" pleaded Lady Thiselton. "My nerves have been tried a little, and a few minutes' rest will soothe me."

"I fear the lady of the house would not approve."

"Oh! we shall creep in quietly without disturbing her pious dreams. Do be nice, Morgan. You know I never smoke any other cigarettes than yours--I am never wicked except in your company."

They entered almost noiselessly.

"How silent the night is," she remarked, "and what a feeling of sleeping mult.i.tudes there is in the air! Suppose the morrow should dawn and they should never awaken. I am shivering. Your room is cold, though the moonlight is quite pretty."

He lighted his reading lamp under its big, green shade. She would not have the gas--she liked the room full of dusk and shadow. The fire was ready laid, and Morgan put a match to it, after which he proceeded to look for the cigarettes. When eventually he turned towards her, he uttered a suppressed exclamation.

She had taken off her heavy cloak and her hat and thrown them carelessly on a chair. She now stood a little to the left of the fire, her face half turned towards it, and was busy removing her long gloves. Her features, amid which nestled mystic trembling shadows, showed bloodless, as though carved of ivory, and her great, dark brown eyes were wonderfully soft and caressing. Her hair ran in a flowing curve off the warm white pallor of her brow till it was lost beyond the ear. Almost on top of her head it lay in a coil, bound with a wide, green velvet band that was fastened in front with a great emerald. Her throat, neck and shoulders rose with the same dull, smooth whiteness, and with an exquisite firmness, from the strange, green velvet costume it had pleased her to wear, and were set in its gold border that glowed and sparkled with smaller emeralds. The robe curved in at the waist, defining the adorable grace of her figure and falling to the ground in gleaming folds and strange contrasts of light and shade. And on each side hung a long, open sleeve with bright yellow lining spread out to the view--a wide, descending sweep of gold in glistening contrast with the deep green of the costume.

She had now placed her gloves on the same chair, and her long, bare arms showed in all the firm beauty of warm ivory tones, without a touch of rose in their whole length, even to the very finger tips. A thick, gold bracelet encircled the wrist of her right hand. On the other hand the gleam of ornament was given by the wedding ring and a similar ring on the same finger set with a limpid diamond.

"Well," she said, smiling.

"You have taken me unawares. One moment you are a soberly clad person, and the next a queenly blaze."

"The moonlight is really wonderful. Turn out the lamp and let me play the 'Moonlight Sonata.'"

"No, smoke your cigarette instead," he suggested.

"You are afraid I might cause the good lady pleasant dreams instead of pious ones. Thank you, dear."

He held her a light, and, after she had taken a puff or two, she pa.s.sed her cigarette to him.

"Your tribute, Morgan," she demanded.

He took a puff and pa.s.sed it back to her. Then, when she had smoked a little:

"It is delicious," she said. "Your lips have given it their sweetness of honey, their fragrance of myrrh."

She leaned leisurely against the mantel, whilst he drew a chair for himself to the opposite corner of the fire. The great emerald gleamed through a dainty cloud of smoke.

"It is lovely here," she said at last. "Such moments as these are the happiest of my life. One's nature must rebel sometimes against being driven along the prescribed lines. There are sides to one's soul, absolutely unallowed for in the ordinary scheme of civilized existence. But instead of letting me moralise, you might be saying some nice things."

"About what?"

"About me, of course."

"Oh! I am enjoying the spectacle you present."

"I built a palace in the air, and, lo and behold! it has proved to be a real palace. I went up to my room to-night and was feeling fanciful and sentimental, which means, of course, I was thinking about you. And then I imagined this whole scene--only a little different; I in this dress, and you at my feet, worshipping me and calling me all sorts of sweet names. And I was coy and held back!"

She paused a moment and laughed merrily.

"Of course," she went on, "I could not resist putting on the costume in order to get nearer the real feeling of such a scene, and it was so delicious that I at once wrapped myself up and come here in a cab. The maid told me you were not expected till late. It's very amusing, by the way--that girl really believes I'm your sister! So I made a descent on dear, stupid Laura--the admirer of your sweet-little-girl poem--and whiled away an hour or so. All m.u.f.fled up, of course. Her heart's weak, you know. Then I strolled back here. And now my imaginary scene is being enacted. Not exactly as I imagined it, but I know the realities of existence and the usual tragic fate of expectations, and so I have reason to feel ecstatic over the result.

Besides, I think I really do look very nice. The contractor for the clay must accidentally have supplied a little of the first quality at the time I was made. He must have torn his hair on finding out the mistake. Come, Morgan, kiss me on the forehead."

She put the cigarette on the mantel, prettily blew away the smoke, and held her two splendid arms towards him. But he did not move.

"I'll even put on the veil and keep my hands behind me, like a good child."

"Helen! Please," he protested.

"Forgive me," she said, and there was a strain of pathos in her voice.

"For the moment I forgot my promise--I was fancying this was a mere continuation of my vision. But I shall not do it again--I shall bite out my tongue first."

He was moved, and awoke to the understanding that he had not yet estimated, according to the ordinary reckoning of the world, the pecuniary favour he had accepted from her. The fact that he felt shame at the resource of which circ.u.mstances forced him to avail himself could not affect his sense of her n.o.bility, and it was a true instinct of grat.i.tude that made him rise in order to bestow what she had ceased to demand. But, somewhat to his astonishment, she waved him back.

"No, Morgan; I really meant what I said, and you must not think I am only tricky."

After which he felt forced to pin her to her request, protesting her honesty was not in dispute.

"You know I am to be trusted," she whispered demurely. "I am so glad you did not insist on the veil. I must really smoke another cigarette to get calm; I am as agitated as a girl getting her first kiss."

"And I'll smoke another to keep you company," he said.

"Let us meet clandestinely somewhere on Thursday about ten o'clock,"

she said a little later. "It makes it ever so much more piquant to proceed mysteriously. We shall lunch in those parts. I must be home again by five, as I have a small dinner-party. I have an idea, Morgan.

One of my men writes he won't be able to turn up. You've never dined at my house in state. Come and fill the vacant place."

He shook his head. His instinct was to refuse without considering. She insisted a little, but, seeing his heart was against it, left the subject, turning gaily to something else.

Soon he went out with her and saw her into a hansom. It was past two when he bade her good-night, having agreed to a rendezvous for Thursday in the heart of the city.

CHAPTER IX.