"But how can you--at the play?"

"I'm not going to the play."

"Not going?"

Clodagh drew her sister closer.

"Now, darling, don't make a fuss! If you say one word of objection, my head will get ten times worse than it is. You are just to listen, and do as I tell you. You are to telephone to Mrs. Estcoit and explain what has happened. She will do the chaperoning instead of me."

"But Walter----"

"Walter is to go with you. You are to be as nice to him as you possibly can be. Everything is to be exactly as we arranged--_exactly_ as we arranged."

She raised herself on her elbow to enforce the words.

"And what about Lord Deerehurst?"

Clodagh did not answer immediately; then, sinking back among her pillows, she spoke in a somewhat hurried voice.

"That will be all right; I--I took your advice and sent him two messages, one to Carlton House Terrace and one to his club. He won't be at the theatre."

"But if he doesn't get the message? If he comes all the same?"

"Then be polite to him. And now go, like a good child. Don't ask any more questions. Don't say anything. Let me see you when you're dressed, and I'll give you a letter for Walter. I'm afraid I can't dine with you; I'll just have something sent in here." Then, as if in sudden remorse, she put her arms about Nance's neck and drew her close to her.

"Darling, forgive me, if I seem impossible!"

At half-past eight Nance left the house, having shown herself to her sister, made a last loving inquiry as to her health, and taken possession of the note for Gore.

As she pa.s.sed out of the bedroom, Clodagh threw off the fur rug that lay across her feet, and sat up with an expression of sharp attention.

As the sound of the closing hall door reached her ears, she drew a little breath of excitement and rose from the couch with no appearance of her recent indisposition.

Without calling in Simonetta, she changed from the white silk wrapper she was wearing into a black walking-dress, and crossing to one of the wardrobes took out a black hat and veil.

She scarcely looked at herself, as she smoothed her hair and fastened on her hat. Beneath the enforced repression of the afternoon, there burned in her mind a certain sense of adventure--of enterprise--that turned her hot and cold. For though the Irish nature may procrastinate, it takes action with a very keen zest when once circ.u.mstance has compelled a decisive step.

Having finished her dressing, she picked up a pair of gloves, switched off the electric light, and left the room. In the corridor outside she met one of the maids; but without giving the woman time to show any surprise, she made haste to offer an explanation.

"I have forgotten to tell Miss a.s.shlin something of importance," she said. "I shall have to drive to the theatre and see her. Please ring for the lift. The porter will find me a cab." And without waiting to observe the effect of the somewhat disjointed statement, she pa.s.sed to the hall door.

A few minutes later the hall porter had put her into a hansom, telling the cabman to drive to the Apollo Theatre.

While the cab doors were being closed, and the order given, Clodagh sat very still; and for a few minutes after they had started, she lay back in her seat, watching the familiar succession of lights and trees and indistinct ma.s.sed faces that form the nightly picture between Knightsbridge and Piccadilly; but at last, as Hyde Park Corner loomed into view, she sat upright, and raising her hand, shook the roof trap.

The cabman checked the pace of his horse and, opening the little door, looked down.

"Don't mind the Apollo," she said. "Drive to Carlton House Terrace instead."

The man muttered an a.s.sent, and, wheeling his horse to the right, cut across the traffic.

Five or six minutes pa.s.sed while the cab threaded its way across the Green Park, past Buckingham Palace into St. James's Park; then Clodagh gained her first close view of Deerehurst's town house. For one moment she felt daunted by the unfamiliarity of its aspect; but the next, she rallied her determination, and, stepping from the cab, paid her fare and walked resolutely across the pavement to the imposing door.

It was opened at once by a servant in very sombre and decorous livery; who, having thrown the door wide, looked at her, then looked at the cab, just wheeling away from the kerb. There was nothing uncivil in the man's glance--nothing that one could reasonably complain of--yet, to her intense annoyance, Clodagh coloured.

"Is Lord Deerehurst at home?" she asked.

The servant's eyes left the retreating cab.

"Have you an appointment with his lordship?"

"If he is in, Lord Deerehurst will see me. I am Mrs. Milbanke."

At the coldness of her tone, and her ready mention of her name, his manner changed, though a flicker of curiosity pa.s.sed across his face.

"Are you the lady his lordship is expecting?" he said, in a different voice.

"Yes, Lord Deerehurst is expecting me."

There was a slight pause; then, with the air of one who admits a novice into inner mysteries, he stepped back, ushering her up into the s.p.a.cious hall.

"Will you kindly step this way?" he said. "His lordship is in his study."

Glad that the ordeal of entering the house was over, Clodagh readily followed the man across the hall, up a wide stairs, and along a softly carpeted corridor. At the end of the pa.s.sage he paused in front of a curtained door, and, pushing the curtain back, entered an unseen room.

"The lady your lordship is expecting!" she heard him say.

Then he turned quickly and threw the door open for her. An instant later, she had entered Deerehurst's room.

At the moment, her thoughts were too confused to permit of detailed observation of the room; although afterwards, when the interview had taken place, and she had time to sift reality from imagination, the scene and its central figure were destined to stand out with the accuracy of a picture that has made an indelible, if an unconscious, impression upon the observer's mind.

The room was an anomaly, viewed from a studious point of view; but the merely artistic eye would have found nothing to cavil at. It was not large, as one counts rooms in a great London house, though elsewhere it would have seemed s.p.a.cious. Numberless books in costly bindings were strewn about on tables and in cases, but they were not the books of the thinker. They were the romances, the memoirs, the poems of the last half-century, but not one volume dealt with science, or even with philosophy. The walls were panelled in dark red; some beautiful lamps hung from the ceiling; and in a distant corner a large silver bowl full of crimson roses was set up, as if in homage to beauty, before an exquisitely modelled statue of Venus.

In a quick, half-comprehended flash of instinct, it came to Clodagh that she had never really seen Deerehurst until now, as he stood backgrounded by the atmosphere he himself had created. He was dressed as he had been on the night in Venice when she had first seen him. He wore the curiously cut evening clothes that he always affected, and which gave to his appearance the peculiar distinction that set him apart from other men; the diamond ring that she had noticed on that first night glittered on his hand; and, as then, the black ribbon of his eyegla.s.s showed across his shirt front. But more clearly than in the dusk of the Venetian night she saw the long outline of his face, the peculiar artificial pallor of his skin, the cold vigilance of his eyes. And in that moment of entry a faint, indescribable hesitancy chilled her resolution. Involuntarily she halted on the threshold of the room.

But Deerehurst gave no time for her indecision to mature. As the door closed upon the servant, he came quickly forward and took the hand she mechanically offered him.

For one moment he held her fingers closely; then he lifted them and, before she could antic.i.p.ate the action, pressed them to his lips.

That a man should kiss a woman's hand by way of greeting is not necessarily a significant thing. It may be a slightly ostentatious act--but it may be nothing more. Uncertain how to construe the movement, Clodagh gave a faint laugh and withdrew her fingers.

"Were you very much surprised to get my wire?"

She moved away from him into the middle of the room. Now that she put it to the test, the interview seemed infinitely more difficult than when contemplated from a distance. She felt nervous and ill at ease.

Watching her with his close, attentive look, Deerehurst drew forward a chair.

"Sit down, little lady!" he said in his thin, impa.s.sive voice.