Certainly, all Nelly's world was very good to her in those days. As for Robin Drummond, he thought of women with a chivalrous tenderness somewhat strange considering that the Dowager was his mother. To him they were something delicate, mysterious, inexplicable. If he had had a sister he would have adored her. Not having one, he lavished on Nelly the feeling he would have given a sister; and hitherto he had been content with the ardour of his feelings. What could a man wish for sweeter and prettier beside his hearth than little Nelly? He had fallen in love with that plan of his mother's for him and Nell with lazy contentment. He liked Nelly's society, and it did not occur to him that he would be just as well pleased with her daily companionship if he could have it without the tie between them becoming more than cousinly.

CHAPTER XIV

LOVERS' PARTING

It might have been better for Nelly if her father had told her of those tentative advances to Captain Langrishe, for then her pride might have come to her aid. As it was, she had nothing to go upon but those looks of his, and his manner to her when they had met at the houses of friends. For they had met, and that was something the General did not know. More, Nelly had engineered, with the cleverness of a girl in love, an acquaintance with Captain Langrishe's sister, a Mrs. Rooke, who lived in one of the Bayswater squares. Mrs. Rooke was a vivacious little dark woman, with a cheek like a peach's rosy side. She was perfectly happy in her own married life, and she had the happily-married woman's desire to bring lovers together. She had taken a prodigious fancy to Nelly. While Captain Langrishe yet remained in England that house in the Bayswater square had an overwhelming attraction for Nelly.

She had gone there first under the Dowager's wing. Cyprian Rooke, K.C., belonged to an unexceptionable family, and even the proud Dowager could find no fault with Nelly's friendship for his wife.

In those days poor Nelly used to feel a perfect monster of deceit. For, first of all, she was deceiving her dear old father. The name of Rooke signified nothing one way or the other to him. Then there was the Dowager, who had proved the most patient and considerate of chaperons, sitting wide-eyed and cheerful till her charge had danced through the programme if it so pleased her; going hither and thither to crowded At Homes, attending first nights at the play--doing, in fact, everything to give Nelly a good time. To be sure, the Dowager attached no importance to the name of Langrishe any more than the General did to that of Rooke.

Mrs. Rooke gave a good many dances after Christmas, and Nelly was at them all. Sometimes Robin was there, sometimes that was not possible.

And Robin was out of his element at such gatherings, since he did not dance and could find no conversation to his mind while he leant against the wall of the ball-room or hung about the doors. Life was so full of work for him that it seemed unreasonable to keep him where there was nothing he could do.

Captain Langrishe turned up at the dances as unfailingly as Nelly herself. He came in spite of many resolutions to the contrary, as the moth comes to singe its wings in the flame of the candle. He did not make Nelly conspicuous for the Dowager or anyone else to see. Sometimes he asked her for several dances. Again, he would be merely polite in asking her for one; and would yield her up coldly to her next partner and never come to her side again for the rest of the evening. Unlike Sir Robin, he danced conspicuously well. Nelly had thrilled to a speech of Robin's: "One cannot despise the art of dancing for a man when a fellow like that thinks it worth his while to excel in it."

One night, when the guests had departed, Mrs. Rooke had something to tell her husband.

"That little wretch, Nelly Drummond!" she said. "I thought she was as innocent and candid as a child. Would you believe it that all the time she has been engaged to that gawky cousin of hers?"

"My dear Belinda, all what time?"

"Well, for a lawyer, Cyprian----"

"I know I'm obtuse, but the law doesn't favour deductions. All what time?"

"Why, all the time poor G.o.dfrey's been falling head over ears in love with her."

Mr. Rooke whistled. He was fond of his wife's brother.

"Are you sure, Bel? I noticed particularly that he was dancing with the wallflowers to-night. He's a good fellow, so that didn't surprise me.

Now you mention it, I caught sight of the little girl dancing with Jack Menzies. She didn't look particularly happy."

"She hasn't been looking particularly happy. I have been imagining that G.o.dfrey's poverty stood between them. He is so impracticable. And I have been making opportunities for them to meet. After all, she is Sir Denis Drummond's only child, and is sure to be sufficiently well off. And here, after all my trouble, I find she is engaged to her cousin. I wonder what she can see in that ugly stick to prefer him to G.o.dfrey!"

"She may not prefer him, my dear. It may be a marriage of convenience.

And Drummond is not a stick. That is your feminine prejudice. He is a very clever fellow, although he has got the Socialistic bee in his bonnet. However, he's young, and has time to mend his ways."

"I don't want to discuss him. How coldblooded you are, Cyprian! I can only think of my poor G.o.dfrey going off to the ends of the earth, and his being deceived and hurt by that heartless girl."

"You will let him know?"

"I certainly shall. He ought to know. It may be the quickest way to make him forget her."

"Since he seems to have made up his mind to go away without speaking to her, I can't see that any great harm has been done," Mr. Rooke said, with his masculine common-sense.

"I shall never forgive her," Mrs. Rooke retorted, with true feminine inconsequence.

She took an early opportunity of telling her brother what the Dowager had told her. The occasion was in her own drawing-room at the afternoon-tea hour, and, since the room was only lit by firelight and a tall standard lamp, his face, where he stood by the mantel-shelf, was in shadow. There had been something portentous in the manner of the telling.

For a few seconds he kept silence. Then he spoke very quietly.

"I hope Miss Drummond may be happy," he said. He did not trouble to put on a pretence of indifference with Bel, just as he did not wish to talk about it. He went on to speak of ordinary topics. That evening he stayed to dinner. He had only a week more in England. Under the electric light at the dinner-table his haggardness was revealed.

"For once," said Cyprian Rooke afterwards, "your discovery wasn't a mare's nest, my dear Bel. G.o.dfrey looks hard hit."

The week turned round quietly. Nelly had not heard definitely the date of Captain Langrishe's departure. For six days she kept away from the Rookes' house. On that last evening he had been icily cold. The poor girl was in torture. All the week she was calling pride to her aid. The sixth day it refused to bolster her up any longer. The sixth day she met at lunch a friend of hers and Belinda Rooke's. She asked a question about the Rookes with averted eyes.

"Poor girl," said the friend; "she is in grief over G.o.dfrey Langrishe.

He sails to-morrow."

The rest of that luncheon-party was a phantasmagoria of faces and voices to poor Nelly. He was going, and she would never see him again, although he had shown her by a thousand infallible signs that he loved her.

Despite his occasional coldness, she was sure he loved her. Her pride was down with a vengeance. She felt nothing at the moment but a desire to see him before he should go--just to see him, to see the lighting up of his gloomy eyes, as they had lit up on seeing her suddenly before he could get his face under control. After that one meeting, the deluge!

But she must see him--she must see him for the last time.

The kindly hostess insisted on her going home in a cab. When she had been driven some distance, Nelly pushed up the little trapdoor of the hansom and gave another address than Sherwood Square.

Having done it, she felt happier. However it ended, she was making a last attempt to see him. She could not have endured a pa.s.sive acquiescence in her destiny, whatever was to be the end of it.

The luncheon-party had been prolonged, and the gas-lamps in the streets were lit. It was the close of the short winter's day. Night came prematurely between the high Bayswater houses. It was almost dark when she stood at last on Mrs. Rooke's doorstep, asking herself what she should do if Mrs. Rooke was away from home.

Mrs. Rooke was out, as it happened, but the maid-servant, who knew Nelly, and, like all servants, had been captivated by her pleasant, friendly ways, invited her in to await the lady's return. Mrs. Rooke was expected back to tea. With a smile on her lips she held the drawing-room door open for Nelly to enter.

Nelly pa.s.sed through. There was a big French screen by the door. She had pa.s.sed beyond it and out into the warm firelit room before she realised that there was another occupant. Someone stood up from the couch by the fireplace as she came towards it. Fate had been on her side for once.

The person was Captain Langrishe.

"My sister will not be very long, Miss Drummond," he began, in a tone he tried in vain to make indifferent. "I hope you won't mind waiting in my company."

Mind waiting, indeed! To Nelly, as to himself, the seconds were precious ones. Mrs. Rooke was shopping on that particular afternoon. It was a kind fate that made it so difficult for her to find just the things she wanted, that sent half-a-dozen acquaintances and friends in her way.

He took Nelly's hand in his. It was quite cold and clammy, although it had come out of a satin-lined m.u.f.f. The hand trembled.

"I heard you were going to-morrow," she said. "I'm so glad I am in time to wish you _bon voyage_."

"Won't you sit down?"

He set a chair for her in front of the fire. The flames lit up her golden hair, and revealed her charming face in its becoming setting of the sables she wore. He sat in his obscure corner, watching her with moody eyes. He said to himself that he would never see her again, yet he laboured to make ordinary everyday talk. He asked after the General, and regretted that the hurry of these latter days had prevented his calling at Sherwood Square.

"We miss you at the head of the squadron," said Nelly, innocently. "It isn't the same thing now that there is a stranger."

"Ah!" A flame leaped into his eyes. He leant forward a little. "That reminds me I ought not to go without making a confession." He was taking a pocket-book from his breastpocket. He opened it, and held it under Nelly's eyes. There was a piece of blue ribbon there. She recognised it with a great leap of her heart. It was her own ribbon which she had lost that spring day as she stood on the balcony looking down at the soldiers.

"You recognise it? It was yours. The wind blew it down close to my hand.

I caught it. I have kept it ever since. May I keep it still? It can do no harm to anybody, my having it--may I keep it?"