CHAPTER VI. THE COUNT STANDS BY.

La discretion d'un homme est d'autant plus grande qu'on lui demande davantage.

"I want you to ask me to dinner!"

The Count de Lloseta bowed as he made this remark, and looked at his companion with a smile.

At times Mrs. Harrington gave way to a momentary panic in respect to Cipriani de Lloseta--when she was not feeling very well, perhaps.

Her situation seemed to be somewhat that of a commander holding an impregnable position against a cunning foe. For every position of such a nature is impenetrable only so long as it can meet and defy each new engine of warfare that is brought against it. And one day the fatal engine is invented.

Mrs. Harrington looked into his face with a flicker in her drawn grey eyes. Then she gave a little laugh which was not quite free from uneasiness.

"Why?" she asked sardonically. "Have you fallen in love with some one at last?"

She knew that this taunt would hurt him. Besides, she liked to throw it at the memory of a woman whom she had hated--Cipriani de Lloseta's dead wife.

"I should like to be of your party to-night," he said quietly.

She gave another scornful laugh, with that ring of malice in it which thrills in the voice of some elderly women when they speak of young girls.

"Eve is to be of our party to-night," she said. "Ah--that would be too absurd--a new Adam! You! But, mind you, Agatha will be here too. You will have to be careful how you play your cards, Don Juan!

However, we dine at eight, and I shall be glad to see you."

De Lloseta took up his hat and stick. With Mrs. Harrington, and with no one else perhaps in London, he still observed the stiff Spanish manner. He bowed without offering to shake hands, and left her.

Mrs. Harrington--cold, calculating, essentially worldly--looked at the closed door with deep speculation in her eyes. They were hard eyes, such as are only to be seen in a woman's face; for an old man has usually picked up a little charity somewhere on the road through life.

Then she looked at a hundred-pound note which he had tossed across the table to her with a silent Catalonian contempt earlier in the proceedings.

"I thought he was rather easy to manage," she said, examining the note. "I thought he wanted something. He has paid this--for his dinner."

The Count moreover appeared to consider the entertainment cheap at the price, if his manner was to be relied upon. For he entered the drawing-room at eight o'clock the same evening with an unusually pleasant air of antic.i.p.atory enjoyment. He shook hands quite gaily with Mrs. Ingham-Baker, who bridled stoutly, and thought that he was a very distinguished-looking man despite his dark airs. He received Agatha's careless nod and shake of the hand with a murmured politeness; with Eve he shook hands in silence. Then he turned rather suddenly upon Fitz and held out his hand gravely.

"I congratulate you," he said. "When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, I did not suspect that I was entertaining a great man unawares--you were too humble."

Fitz involuntarily glanced towards Eve, knowing that the speaker had a second meaning. Eve was watching the Count rather curiously, as if wondering how he would greet Fitz. Every one in the room was looking at the Count de Lloseta; for this quiet-spoken Spaniard was a distinct factor in the life of each one of them.

They fell to talking of commonplace matters, and presently Mrs.

Harrington rustled in. The servants were only awaiting her arrival to announce that dinner was ready.

She looked round.

"We are short of men," she said. "We miss Luke, do we not?"

She looked straight at Agatha, who returned her stare with audacious imperturbability. It was only Luke's presence that unsteadied her.

When he was away, she could hold her own against the world.

"I have never seen Luke," said Eve to the Count, who had been commanded to offer her his arm. "I am so sorry to have missed him."

Agatha, who was in front, beneath them on the stairs, turned and looked up at her with a strange smile. She either did not heed the Count, or she undervalued his powers of observation.

"You would undoubtedly have liked him," said the Spaniard.

At the table there was considerable arranging of the seats, and finally De Lloseta was placed at one side with Mrs. Ingham-Baker, while the two girls sat side by side opposite to them.

Fitz was at the foot of the table.

In the course of conversation the Spaniard leant across and said to Agatha -

"Have you seen this month's Commentator, Miss Ingham-Baker?"

An unaccountable silence fell upon the a.s.sembled guests. Eve Challoner's face turned quite white. Her eyes were lowered to her plate. No one looked at her except the Count, and his glance was momentary.

"Yes--and of course I have read the Spanish sketch. I suppose every one in London has! It makes me want to go to Spain."

Mrs. Ingham-Baker bridled and glanced at the Spaniard. Agatha might be a countess yet--a foreign one, but still a countess. Fitz was looking at De Lloseta. He naturally concluded that it was he who had written the article. He was still watching his face when the Spaniard turned to him and said -

"And you, Fitz? You know something about the matter too!"

And Eve Challoner betrayed herself completely. No one happened to be looking at her except Cipriani de Lloseta, and he saw that not only had she written the celebrated articles, but that she loved Fitz. Fitz's opinion was the only one worth hearing. In her anxiety to hear it, she quite forgot to guard her secret.

"Yes," answered Fitz, wondering what De Lloseta was leading up to.

"I have read them both, of course. I hope there are more. The man knows what he is writing about."

"He does," said the Count, smiling across the table at Eve.

The girl was moistening her lips, which seemed suddenly to have become dry and feverish. Her hands were trembling. She had evidently been terribly afraid of the opinion so innocently asked by the Spaniard.

De Lloseta changed the subject at once. He had found out all that he wanted to know, and more. He had no intention of forcing a confidence upon Eve.

The burthen of the conversation fell upon his shoulders. Fitz, no great talker at any time, was markedly quiet. He had nothing to offer for the general delectation. His remarks upon all subjects mooted were laconic and valueless. The duties as temporary host occupied him for the moment, and his thoughts were obviously elsewhere. His att.i.tude towards Eve had been friendly, but rather reserved. There was no suggestion of sulkiness, but on the other hand he had failed to take advantage of one or two opportunities which she had given him of referring to the past and to any mutual obligations or common interests they had had therein. It happened that Agatha had heard her give him these openings, and had noticed his lack of enterprise.

Agatha Ingham-Baker had long before conceived a strange suspicion-- namely, that Eve and Fitz loved each other. She had absolutely nothing to base her suspicions upon, not so much even as the gossips of Majorca. And nevertheless her suspicions throve, as such do, and grew into conviction.

Agatha had come down early to the drawing-room on purpose to establish her right over Fitz. She found De Lloseta in the hall, and he followed her into the room. Whenever she attempted to demonstrate her right to the attention of the only young man present by one of those little glances or words with which women hurt each other, De Lloseta seemed to step in, intercepting with his dark smile. At dinner, when Fitz was absent-minded, Agatha managed to show the others that she alone could follow him into the land of his reflections and call him back from thence. But on several occasions, when she was about to turn to him with a smile which was especially reserved for certain young men under certain circ.u.mstances, Cipriani de Lloseta spoke to her and spoilt the small manoeuvre.

Eve saw it all. She saw more than the acute Spaniard. Firstly, because she was a woman. Secondly, because she loved Fitz.

Thirdly, because the inken curse was hers in a small degree, and people who dabble in ink often wade deep into human nature.

CHAPTER VII. A VOYAGE.

And hence one master pa.s.sion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows all the rest.

Life is, after all, a matter of habit. In those families where rapid consumption is hereditary, the succeeding generations seem to get into the habit of dying early. They take it, without complaint, as a matter of course. Sailors and other persons who lead a rough and hazardous life seem also to acquire this philosophy of existence. Luke FitzHenry went to sea again on the day appointed for the Croonah to leave London, without so much as a snarl at Fate.