But it was she who gave him an opening.

"Luke," she said, "it's all very well, but the matter does concern you in a way; far more so, in fact, than it does Lord Radclyffe. Nothing can make any difference to Lord Radclyffe, but if what this young man a.s.serts is all true, then it will make a world of difference to you."

"I know that. That's just the trouble."

"You were thinking of yourself?"

"No. I was thinking of you."

"Of me?"

"Yes," he said now very abruptly, quite roughly and crudely, not choosing his words lest they helped to betray what he felt, and all that he felt. "If what this man says is true, then I am a penniless nonent.i.ty whom you are not going to marry."

"You are talking nonsense, Luke, and you know it," was all she said.

And she said it very quietly, very decisively. He was talking nonsense, of course, for, whatever happened or didn't happen, there was one thing in the world that was absolutely, undeniably impossible, and that was that she should not marry Luke.

Whilst she Louisa Harris, plain, uninteresting, commonplace Louisa Harris was of this world, her marriage with Luke must be. People, in this present day, matter-of-fact world, didn't have their hearts wrenched out of them; they were not made to suffer impossible and unendurable tortures; then why should she Louisa Harris, be threatened with such a cataclysm?

"I am not," he was saying rather tonelessly, "talking nonsense, Lou. I have thought all that over. It's over eight days since that letter came; eight times twenty-four hours since I seemed in a way to see all my future through a thick, black cloud, and I've had time to think. I saw you too, through that thick, black cloud--I saw you just as you are, exquisite, beautiful, like a jewel that should forever remain in a perfect setting. I----"

He broke off abruptly, and, mechanically, his hand went up to his forehead and eyes. Where was he? He gave a sudden, quaint laugh.

"What a drivelling fool you must think me, Lou."

She looked straight at him, pure of soul, simple of heart, with a pa.s.sion of tenderness and self-abnegation as yet dormant beneath the outer crust of a conventional education and of commonplace surroundings, but with the pa.s.sion there nevertheless. And it was expressed in the sudden, strange luminosity of her eyes--I would not have you think that they were tears--as they met and held his own.

They didn't say anything more just then. People of their type and cla.s.s in England do not say much, you know, under such circ.u.mstances.

They have been drilled not to: drilled and drilled from childhood upward, from the time when, after a fall and a cut lip or broken tooth, the tears have to be held back, lest the words "snivel" or "cry-baby" be mentioned. But quietude does not necessarily mean freedom from pain. A cut lip hurts worse when it is not wetted with tears.

It was only the shadow that was hovering over these two as yet: nothing really tangible. And the shadow was not between them. She would not let it come between them. If it covered him, it should wrap her too. The commonplace woman had no fear of its descent, only as far as it affected him.

"Nothing," she said after awhile, "could make a difference to our marriage, Luke. Except, of course, if you ceased to care."

"Or you, Lou," he suggested meekly.

"Do you think," she retorted, "that I should? Just because you had no money?"

"Not," he owned, "because of that. But I should be such a nonent.i.ty. I have no real profession, and there are the others. Jim in the Blues costs a fearful lot a year, and Frank in the diplomatic service must have his promised allowance. I have read for the bar, but beyond that what am I?"

"Your uncle's right hand," she retorted firmly, "his agent, his secretary, his factotum, all rolled into one. You manage his estates, his charities, his correspondence. You write his speeches and control his household. Lord Radclyffe--every one says it in London--would not be himself at all without Luke de Mountford behind him."

"That's not what I mean, Lou."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that--"

He paused a moment then added with seeming irrelevance:

"We all know that Uncle Rad is a curious kind of man. If this story turns out to be true, he would still say nothing, but he would fret and fret and worry himself into his grave."

"The story," she argued obstinately, "will not turn out to be true.

It's not like you, Luke, to jump at conclusions, or to be afraid of a nightmare."

"I am not afraid," he rejoined simply. "But I must look at possibilities. Yes, dear," he continued more forcibly, "it is possible that this story is true. No good saying that it is impossible: improbable if you like, but not impossible. Look at it how you like, you must admit that it is not impossible. Uncle Arthur may have married in Martinique; he was out there in 1881; he may have had a son; his telling no one about his marriage is not to be wondered at; he was always reticent and queer about his own affairs. This Philip may possibly be Uncle Rad's sole and rightful heir, and I may possibly be a beggar."

She uttered an exclamation of incredulity. Luke, a beggar! Luke the one man in all the world, different from every other man! Luke ousted by that stranger upstart!

G.o.d hath too much sense of humour to allow so ridiculous a Fate to work her silly caprice.

"And," she said with scorn, "because of all these absurd possibilities you talk of breaking off your engagement to me. Do you care so little as all that, Luke?"

He did not reply, but continued to walk beside her, just a yard or so apart from her, turning his steps in the direction of the gates, toward the Albert Bridge, their nearest way home. She--meekly now, for already she was sorry--turned to look at him. Something in his att.i.tude, the stoop of the shoulders, usually so square and erect, the hands curiously clasped behind his back, told her that her shaft--very thoughtlessly aimed--had struck even deeper than it should.

"I am so sorry, dear," she said gently.

His look forgave her, even before the words were fully out of her mouth, but with characteristic reticence, he made no reply to her taunt. Strangely enough she was satisfied that he should say nothing.

The look, which did not reproach even whilst it tried to conceal the infinite depth of the wound so lightly dealt, had told her more than any words could do. Whatever Luke decided to do, it would be from a sense of moral obligation, that desire for doing the right thing--in the worldly sense of the term--which is inherent in Englishmen of a certain cla.s.s. No sentiment save that of a conventional one of honour would be allowed to sway her destiny and his.

Conventionality--that same strained sense of honour and duty--decreed that under certain mundane circ.u.mstances a man and woman should not mate. Differences of ancestry, of parentage, of birth and of country, divergence of taste, of faith, of belief--all these matter not one jot. But let the man be beggared and the woman rich, and convention steps in and says, "It shall not be!"

These two bowed to that decree: unconventional, in so far that they both made the sacrifice out of the intense purity of their sentiment to one another. They made an absolutely worldly sacrifice for a wholly unworldly motive. Luke would as soon have thought of seeing Louisa in a badly fitting serge frock, and paying twopence for a two-mile ride in an omnibus, as he would expect to see a diamond tiara packed in a card-board box, it would be unfair on the jeweller who had made the tiara thus to subject it to rough treatment; and it would be equally unfair on the Creator of Louisa to let her be buffeted about by the cruder atoms of this world.

Louisa only thought of Luke and that perhaps he would feel happier in his mind if she allowed him to make this temporary sacrifice.

There is such wonderful balm in self-imposed sacrifice.

"What," she asked simply, "do you want me to say, Luke?"

"Only that--that you won't give me up altogether unless----"

Here he checked himself abruptly. Was there ever an Englishman born who could talk sentiment at moments such as this? Luke was no exception to that rule. There was so much that he wanted to say to Louisa, and yet the very words literally choked him before he could contrive to utter them.

"Don't," she said quietly, "let us even refer to such things, Luke. I do not believe in this shadow, and I cannot even understand why you should worry about it. But whatever happens, I should never give you up. Never. We will put off fixing the day of our wedding; since we have made no announcement this won't matter at all: but I only agree to this because I think that it is what you would like. I fancy that it would ease your mind. As for breaking our engagement in the future--in case the worst happens--well it shall not be with my consent, Luke, unless you really cease to care."

They had reached the gate close to the bridge. Life pulsated all round them, the life of the big city, callous, noisy, and cruel. Omnibuses, cabs, heavy vans, rattled incessantly past them. People jostled one another, hurrying and scurrying, pigmies and ants adding their tiny load of work, of care, of sorrow to the t.i.tanic edifice of this living world.

Louisa's last words remained unanswered. Luke had, by his silence, said everything there was to say. They stood on the pavement for a moment, and Luke hailed a pa.s.sing taxicab.

At the corner opposite, an omnibus pulled up on its way westward. A man stepped off the curb ready to enter it. Louisa caught his eye, and he raised his hat--the man who had pa.s.sed them in the park just now.

CHAPTER VI

JUST A DISAGREEABLE OLD MAN