By Birth A Lady Part 34

Furious now with rage, he took a cab and drove to Max's lodgings in Bury-street, Saint James's, to arrive in time to see two ladies descend the steps--one of whom was Ella--Max handing them into a waiting brougham, and kissing his hand as they were driven off.

"Ah, Charley Vining, how do?" he exclaimed, smiling pleasantly as he encountered the fierce angry face at his side. "Bai Jove, what a stranger you are! Haven't set eyes on you for months."

"I want a few words with you, Max," said Charley harshly.

"Many as you like. Bai Jove, I don't care how much any one talks to me, so long as they don't want me to talk to them! Come upstairs."

Charley followed him into his sybaritish bachelor rooms, where Max threw himself on a couch.

"Cigar or pipe, Vining--which will you have? I've some capital Saint Julien, and a decent bottle or two of hock. Which shall it be? Bai Jove, man, what's the matter? Anything upset you?"

"Max Bray," said Charley, striding up to the sofa and towering over its occupant, "I want to know who those ladies were that you handed into that brougham."

"Bai Jove, mai dear fellow, what an uncouth kind of catechism! And suppose I don't choose to tell you?"

"Curse you! I'll wring it out of you!" cried Charley fiercely.

"No, bai Jove, you won't do anything of the kind," said Max coolly.

"Gentlemen don't act like confounded cads. Why, man alive, I did not say I would not tell you. I'm open as the day. Do you want to know?"

Charley made an impatient gesture.

"Well, bai Jove, if you must know, one is a friend of mine, Mrs Marter, of Regent's-park."

"And the other?" said Charley hoa.r.s.ely.

"The other," said Max, quietly lighting a cigar, "is another lady friend of mine--one Miss Bedford."

Max must have seen those clutching fingers that moved as if about to seize him by the throat; but he did not shrink, he did not waver for an instant, but lit his cigar unmoved, and then sank luxuriously back upon the couch to smoke and stare nonchalantly in his visitor's face.

That cool matter-of-fact way staggered and disarmed Charley. Had he seen the slightest sign of cowardice, he would have seized Max, and shaken him savagely; but that cool insolence seemed to the stricken man to tell of success and safety of position--the sense of being able to deal pityingly with an unfortunate rival; and it was in altered tones that Charley tore a letter from his breast, and threw it upon the table.

"Who redirected that letter?" he exclaimed.

Max smoked for a few moments in thoughtful silence, then, casting off all affectation, he said quietly:

"Would it not be better to change the subject, Vining? It is not every horse that wins. The favourite is a dangerous nag to place your money on, as you must know. We are old friends, Vining, and I am sorry to run counter to you. Say what you will, I shall not quarrel."

"Who redirected that letter?" repeated Charley, again more fiercely.

"Bai Jove, Vining, this is going too far!" said Max in injured tones.

"You have no right to come to a gentleman and ask him such questions."

"Who redirected that letter?" Charley cried for the third time.

"Well there, then, if you will have it--I did," said Max quietly.

"And any others?"

"Yes, all of them."

"And by whose authority?"

"Bai Jove, it's too bad!" exclaimed Max--"I will not say another word.

I will not be cross-examined like this. You've made misery enough, Vining, bai Jove, you have! You throw over poor Laura in the most heartless way; you come between me and some one; and now, when matters are once more running smoothly, you come here more like a mad bull than anything. I don't care; it's the truth, and you can't deny it!"

The moment was critical again; for blind with rage, Charley Vining seized Max by the throat, and placed his knee upon his chest as he lay back on the couch; but again the latter was equal to the position, and he did not attempt to free himself.

"Don't be a brute, Vining!" he said quietly. "I'm not afraid of you; but you have double my strength."

Charley started back as he was met by those cool collected words, and catching up his letter, he tore from the place, leaving Max with a quiet contented smile upon his face, smoking till he had finished his cigar, when he threw away the end, rose, rearranged his slightly disordered s.h.i.+rt-front, and rang for a cab, being driven to Austin's Ticket-Office, where he secured seats for a concert to be held that night at Saint James's Hall; returned, made a most elaborate toilet, and then, not knowing, but careless, whether or not he was watched, he made his way to Crescent Villas, dined there, and that same evening Charley Vining saw him seated beside Ella Bedford in the reserved scats at the great hall, while, pale and careworn in the balcony, the young man again and again saw Ella smile at something her companion uttered.

"I'll not give up yet," said Charley hoa.r.s.ely. "I made a vow, and I'll keep to it!"

Volume 2, Chapter XXI.

"La Donna e Mobile," hummed Charley again and again, as he sat in the smoking-room of his hotel. He had paid no heed to the concert, his eyes being fixed all the while upon Max and his two companions; but that air had been sung by one of the great artistes, and words and music had forced themselves upon him so that they seemed for hours after to be ringing in his ears.

"La Donna e Mobile." Yes, it was all plain enough, and it was nothing new. He had made an impression at first, and she had seemed to love him--perhaps, after her fas.h.i.+on, had loved him--but woman's love, he said, required feeding. The fuel absent, the flame must become extinct.

He laughed bitterly, and a waiter came up.

"Did you ask for something, sir?"

"No!" roared Charley savagely; and the man shrunk away.

"I'll pester her no more," he said; "let things take their course. I'll go down home and see the poor old gentleman to-morrow. I may just as well, as hang about here torturing myself over a slow fire. I wonder how the mare looks. A good run or two would do me no end of good. I'll pack up and run down to-morrow."

Then he laughed bitterly, for he knew that he was playing at self-deceit; he felt that he could not stir from London--that he was, as it were, fixed, and without a desire to leave the spot where he could feel that she was near.

"No," he said, after a while; "I'll not give up yet. I made a vow, and I'll keep it. She is not his yet. She may have been--she must have been--deceived. I have been condemned. No; she would not listen. I don't know--there, I think I'm half mad!"

Just then his hand came in contact with a couple of letters which had been awaiting him on his return, and which one of the waiters had handed to him, to be thrust unnoticed into his pocket.

"Bills," said the waiter, to one of his fellows. "How nice to be tradesman to those young swells! I s'pose some of them must pay, some time or other, or else people couldn't live."

"O yes," said the other; "some of them pay, and those who will pay, have to pay for those who won't."

"Through the nose," said number one with a wink.

"To be sure," said his confrere; and then they laughed at one another, and winked again.

But the waiter was wrong: those were not bills; one being a long and affectionate letter from Sir Philip Vining, telling Charley that he would be in town the next day, and asking if it would be convenient for his son to meet him at the station. The other was from Laura Bray, saying that they had heard from Sir Philip that he would be in town the next day, and asking that he and Charley would dine in Harley-street, where was the Brays' town house, on the next day but one.

The above was all formal, and written at mamma's command, but Laura had added a postscript, asking that Charley would come for the sake of the old times when they were friends. Max would be away, and the party very small.

Then came a quiet reminder of the encounter, and a word to say that the writer had looked out day by day, in the expectation of receiving a call, while poor Nelly was _au desespoir_.