"Well, I should not let any of that nonsense ever stand between Freynie and me, thank goodness!" she concluded.

But John Derringham limped off to the bows of the ship, quivering with pain. So Halcyone had spoken of his engagement and said he was "clever and great." What could it all mean? Did he no longer interest her then--even at that period? This stung him deeply. There was no light anywhere. When once he had grasped the full significance of his own conduct he was much too fine an intelligence to deceive himself, or persuade himself to see any other aspect but the hopeless one, that the entire chain of events was the result of his own action. But surely there must be some way out? If he wrote straight to Cecilia and told her the truth? And then he almost laughed bitterly as he realized the futility of this plan. What would the truth matter to Mrs. Cricklander?

She could very well retort that he had known all this truth from the beginning, and had been willing to marry her while his financial position made it an advantage to himself, but was now _recalcitrant_ only because fortune had otherwise poured gold into his lap.

No, there was no hope. He must go through with it.

So he crushed down his emotions and forced himself to return to Miss Lutworth and talk brightly to her until they landed.

And when they parted at the Gare du Nord, Cora was left with the impression that, whatever might be the undercurrent, John Derringham was strong enough to face his fate, and not give anyone the satisfaction of knowing whether in it he found pleasure or pain.

When he arrived about ten days later at the hotel in Florence, where Mrs. Cricklander was staying, waiting for him to accompany her on to Venice, he found her in a very bad temper. She felt that she had not been treated with that deference and respect which was her due, to say nothing of the ardor that a lover ought to have shown by hastening to her side. Why had he motored, spending ten days on a journey that he could have accomplished in two? And he made no excuses, and seemed quite unimpressed by her mood one way or another. He was so changed, too!

Gaunt and haggard--he had certainly lost every one of his good looks, except his distinction--that seemed more marked than ever. His arrogant air that she had once admired so much now only caused her to feel a great irritation. He had made the excuse of the waiter not having quite closed the door, apparently, for only kissing her hand by way of greeting, and then he said just the right thing about her beauty and his pleasure in seeing her, and sat down by her side upon the sofa in far too collected a manner for a lover to have shown after these weeks of separation. Mrs. Cricklander grew very angry indeed. Cold and capricious behavior should only be shown upon a woman's side, she felt!

"Your Government made a colossal mess of things before the session was over, did they not?" she said by way of something to start upon. "Mr.

Hanbury-Green tells me you will have to face a hostile vote when you rea.s.semble, and that the whole thing is a played-out game. How long would the Radicals last if they do come in?--and it looks like a certainty that they will."

"Seven years, most likely," said John Derringham a little bitterly. "Or perhaps to the end of time. Your friend Mr. Green could tell you more accurately than I. Does the fact interest you very deeply?"

"Yes," she said, and narrowed her eyes. "I am wildly interested in everything that concerns you, of course--that is obvious."

"You will help me to fight, then, for the Opposition. Your social talents are so great, dear Cecilia, you will make a most brilliant Tory hostess," and he took her hand--he felt he must do something.

"I have always been on the winning side," she said, not more than half playfully. "I do not know how I should like seven years of fighting an uncertain fight. I might get extremely bored by it. I had no idea it would last so long." And she laughed a little uncomfortably. "However, we are perfectly modern, aren't we, John, and need not spend the entire year fighting together--fortunately?"

"No," he said. "I am sure we shall be an admirable pair of citizens of the world. And now I suppose I must let you go and dress for dinner. How is our estimable friend, Miss Clinker? She is with you, I suppose?--or have you friends staying in the hotel? You did not tell me in your letters."

"I never waste sweetness upon the desert air," she said, smiling, with a glitter in her eyes. "You did not appear over anxious to hear of my doings. Our correspondence made me laugh sometimes. You never wrote as though you had received any of my letters--yours were just masterpieces of how little to say--and of how to say it beautifully!"

John Derringham shrugged his shoulders slightly; he did not defend himself, and her anger rose. So that she was leaving the room with her head in the air and two bright spots of pink in her cheeks.

Then he felt constrained to vindicate his position, so he put his arm round her and drew her to him, intending to kiss her. But she looked up into his face with an expression in her eyes which left him completely repulsed. It was mocking and bitter and cunning, and she put out her hand and pushed him from her.

"I do not want any of your caresses to-night," she said. "When I do, I'll pay for them." And she swept from the room, leaving him quivering with debas.e.m.e.nt.

CHAPTER x.x.x

There was fortunately a company a.s.sembled for dinner when John Derringham descended to the restaurant and again joined his _fiancee_--who never dined alone if she could help it, and reveled in gay parties for every meal, with plenty of brilliant lights and the chatter of other groups near at hand. Wherever she went, from Carlsbad to Cairo, in the best restaurant you could always find her amidst her many friends, feasting every night. And now the party consisted of some of her compatriots, a Russian Prince, and an Italian Marchese. She looked superbly beautiful; anger had lent a sparkle to her eyes and a flush to her cheeks; no rouge was needed to-night, and she could scintillate to her heart's content. She flashed words occasionally at John Derringham, and he knew, and was horribly conscious all the time, that once he would have found her most brilliant, but that now it was exactly as when he had looked at the X-ray photograph of his own broken ankle, where the sole thing which made a reality was the skeleton substructure. He could only seem to see Cecilia Cricklander's vulgar soul---the pink and white perfection of her body had melted into nothingness.

He found himself listening for some of her parrot-utterances, as a detached spectator, and taking a sort of ugly pleasure in recognizing which were the phrases of Arabella. The man upon her left hand was intelligent, and was gazing at her with the rapt attention beauty always commands, and she was uttering her finest plat.i.tudes.

And once John Derringham leant back in his chair, when no one was observing him, and laughed aloud. The supreme mockery of it all! And in five weeks from this night this woman would be his wife!

_His wife!_ Ye G.o.ds!

They had no _tete-a-tete_ words before the party broke up, and had hardly exchanged a sentence when, as the last guest was saying farewell, Arabella, too, retired from the sitting-room.

So they were alone.

"Cecilia," he said, coming up quite close to her, "we started rather badly to-night--at least let us be friends." And he held out his hand.

"Believe me, I wish to do all that I can to please you, but I am afraid I make a very indifferent sort of lover. Forgive me,"

"Oh, you are well enough, I suppose," she said. "No man values what he has won--it is only the winning of it that is any fun. I understand the feeling myself. Don't let us talk heroics."

John Derringham smiled.

"Certainly not," he said.

And then she put up her face and let him kiss her, which he did with some sickening revolt in his heart. Even her physical beauty had no more any effect upon him--he would as soon have kissed Arabella.

So she sailed from the room again, with her mouth shut like a vice, and her handsome eyes glancing at him over her shoulder.

Next day, after having kept him waiting for an hour to take her out, she decided they should spend what remained of the morning at the Bargello.

And, when they got there, she did her best to be a charming companion, and pressed him to lean upon her instead of his stick. But to his awakened understanding what was even probably true in her talk and comprehension of the gems of art, seemed false and affected, and he was only conscious of one continual jar as she spoke.

A thousand little trifles, never remarked before, now appeared to loom large in his vision. At last they came to the galleries above, to the collection of the Della Robbias, and Mrs. Cricklander rhapsodized over them, mixing them up with delightful unconcern. They were all just bits of cheap-looking crockery to her eye, and it was impossibly difficult to distinguish which was Luca's, Andrea's, or Giovanni's; and, security having made her careless, she committed several blunders.

John Derringham laid no pitfalls for her--indeed, he helped her out when he could. To-day each new discovery no longer made him smile with bitter cynicism, he was only filled with a sense of discomfort and regret.

He stopped in front of Andrea's masterpiece, the tender young Madonna.

Something in the expression of the face made him think of Halcyone, although the types of the two were entirely different; and Cecilia Cricklander, watching, saw a look of deep pain grow in his eyes.

"I wish to goodness he would get well and be human and masterful and brilliant, as he used to be," she thought. "I am thoroughly tired out, trying to cope with him. He is no more use now than a b.u.mp on a log. I am sorry I made him come here!"

"It is about time for lunch," said John Derringham, who could no longer bear her prattle; and they returned to the hotel.

Arabella and an American man made the _partie carree_, and Miss Clinker did her best to help to get through the repast, and afterwards wrote in a letter to her mother:

Mr. Derringham has arrived. He still looks dreadfully ill and careworn, and I can see is feeling his position acutely. Since that dreadful day when he found my notes in Gibbon, I have never dared to look at him when in the company of M. E. I feel that distressing sensation of hot and cold during the whole time. M. E., now that no further great efforts are needed, chatters on with most disquieting inconsequence. I can see she is very much upset at Mr. Derringham's att.i.tude. The impression that the Conservative Goverment cannot last has had also a great effect upon her, and she has set me to find out exactly the position and amount of prestige the wife of a rising member of the Opposition would have. This morning she sent for me, when she was dressing, to know if it were true, as Mr. Derringham had told her, that, if the Radicals got in, they might last seven years--because, if so, she would then be almost thirty-eight, and the best days of her youth would be over. I do not dare to think what these remarks may mean, but in connection with the fact that she receives daily letters from Mr. Hanbury-Green--that unpleasant Socialistic person who is coming so much to the front--I almost fear, and yet hope, that there is some chance for Mr. Derringham's escape.

He is bearing his trouble as only an English gentleman could do, and at lunch paid her every attention.

And old Mrs. Clinker smiled when she got this letter.

But by the end of the afternoon John Derringham's face wore no smiles; a blank despair had settled upon him.

They drove along the Arno and into the Gardens.

It was warm and beautiful, but, so forceful is a hostile atmosphere created between two people, they both found it impossible to make conversation.

Mrs. Cricklander was burning with rage and a sense of impotency. She felt her words and all her arts of pleasing were being nullified, and that she was up against an odious situation in which her strongest weapons were powerless. It made her nervous and very cross. She particularly resented not being able to ascertain the cause of the change in him, and felt personally aggrieved at his still being a wretched wreck hobbling with a stick. He ought to have got quite well by now--it was perfectly ridiculous. What if, after all, he would not be worth while? But the indomitable part of her character made her tenacious. She felt it was a different matter, throwing away what she had won, to having to relinquish something that she knew she had never really gained. She would make one more determined effort, and then, if he would not give her love, he should be made to feel his bondage, she would extort from him to the last ounce, her pound of flesh.

"John, darling," she said, slipping her hand into his, under the rug as they drove, "this beautiful place makes me feel so romantic. I wish you would make love to me. You sit there looking like Dante with a beard, as cold as ice."

"I am very sorry," he answered, startled from a reverie. "I know I am a failure in such sort of ways. What do you want me to say?"