The Black Robe Part 20

"If it brings me a kind letter in reply," Stella answered, "it will have all the effect I hope for."

"If it does anything," Lady Loring rejoined, "it will do more than that."

"What more can it do?"

"My dear, it can bring Romayne back to you."

Those hopeful words seemed rather to startle Stella than to encourage her.

"Bring him back to me?" she repeated "Oh, Adelaide, I wish I could think as you do!"

"Send the letter to the post," said Lady Loring, "and we shall see."

CHAPTER XIII

FATHER BENWELL'S CORRESPONDENCE.

I.

_Arthur Penrose to Father Benwell._

REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER--When I last had the honor of seeing you, I received your instructions to report, by letter, the result of my conversations on religion with Mr. Romayne.

As events have turned out, it is needless to occupy your time by dwelling at any length on this subject, in writing. Mr. Romayne has been strongly impressed by the excellent books which I have introduced to his notice. He raises certain objections, which I have done my best to meet; and he promises to consider my arguments with his closest attention, in the time to come. I am happier in the hope of restoring his mental tranquillity--in other and worthier words, of effecting his conversion--than I can tell you in any words of mine. I respect and admire, I may almost say I love, Mr. Romayne.

The details which are wanting in this brief report of progress I shall have the privilege of personally relating to you. Mr. Romayne no longer desires to conceal himself from his friends. He received a letter this morning which has changed all his plans, and has decided him on immediately returning to London. I am not acquainted with the contents of the letter, or with the name of the writer; but I am pleased, for Mr.

Romayne's sake, to see that the reading of it has made him happy.

By to-morrow evening I hope to present my respects to you.

II.

_Mr. Bitrake to Father Benwell._

SIR--The inquiries which I have inst.i.tuted at your request have proved successful in one respect.

I am in a position to tell you that events in Mr. Winterfield's life have unquestionably connected him with the young lady named Miss Stella Eyrecourt.

The attendant circ.u.mstances, however, are not so easy to discover.

Judging by the careful report of the person whom I employ, there must have been serious reasons, in this case, for keeping facts secret and witnesses out of the way. I mention this, not to discourage you, but to prepare you for delays that may occur on our way to discovery.

Be pleased to preserve your confidence in me, and to give me time--and I answer for the result.

BOOK THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

THE SANDWICH DANCE.

A FINE spring, after a winter of unusual severity, promised well for the prospects of the London season.

Among the social entertainments of the time, general curiosity was excited, in the little sphere which absurdly describes itself under the big name of Society, by the announcement of a party to be given by Lady Loring, bearing the quaint t.i.tle of a Sandwich Dance. The invitations were issued at an unusually early hour; and it was understood that nothing so solid and so commonplace as the customary supper was to be offered to the guests. In a word, Lady Loring's ball was designed as a bold protest against late hours and heavy midnight meals. The younger people were all in favor of the proposed reform. Their elders declined to give an opinion beforehand.

In the small inner circle of Lady Loring's most intimate friends, it was whispered that an innovation in the matter of refreshments was contemplated, which would put the tolerant principles of the guests to a severe test. Miss Notman, the housekeeper, politely threatening retirement on a small annuity, since the memorable affair of the oyster-omelet, decided on carrying out her design when she heard that there was to be no supper. "My attachment to the family can bear a great deal," she said. "But when Lady Loring deliberately gives a ball, without a supper, I must hide my head somewhere--and it had better be out of the house!" Taking Miss Notman as representative of a cla.s.s, the reception of the coming experiment looked, to say the least of it, doubtful.

On the appointed evening, the guests made one agreeable discovery when they entered the reception rooms. They were left perfectly free to amuse themselves as they liked.

The drawing-rooms were given up to dancing; the picture gallery was devoted to chamber music. Chess-players and card-players found remote and quiet rooms especially prepared for them. People who cared for nothing but talking were accommodated to perfection in a sphere of their own. And lovers (in earnest or not in earnest) discovered, in a dimly-lighted conservatory with many recesses, that ideal of discreet retirement which combines solitude and society under one roof.

But the ordering of the refreshments failed, as had been foreseen, to share in the approval conferred on the arrangement of the rooms. The first impression was unfavorable. Lady Loring, however, knew enough of human nature to leave results to two potent allies--experience and time.

Excepting the conservatory, the astonished guests could go nowhere without discovering tables prettily decorated with flowers, and bearing hundreds of little pure white china plates, loaded with nothing but sandwiches. All varieties of opinion were consulted. People of ordinary tastes, who liked to know what they were eating, could choose conventional beef or ham, encased in thin slices of bread of a delicate flavor quite new to them. Other persons, less easily pleased, were tempted by sandwiches of _pate de fois gras_ and by exquisite combinations of chicken and truffles, reduced to a creamy pulp which clung to the bread like b.u.t.ter. Foreigners, making experiments, and not averse to garlic, discovered the finest sausages of Germany and Italy transformed into English sandwiches. Anchovies and sardines appealed, in the same unexpected way, to men who desired to create an artificial thirst--after having first ascertained that the champagne was something to be fondly remembered and regretted, at other parties, to the end of the season. The hospitable profusion of the refreshments was all-pervading and inexhaustible. Wherever the guests might be, or however they were amusing themselves, there were the pretty little white plates perpetually tempting them. People eat as they had never eat before, and even the inveterate English prejudice against anything new was conquered at last. Universal opinion declared the Sandwich Dance to be an admirable idea, perfectly carried out.

Many of the guests paid their hostess the compliment of arriving at the early hour mentioned in the invitations. One of them was Major Hynd.

Lady Loring took her first opportunity of speaking to him apart.

"I hear you were a little angry," she said, "when you were told that Miss Eyrecourt had taken your inquiries out of your hands."

"I thought it rather a bold proceeding, Lady Loring," the Major replied.

"But as the General's widow turned out to be a lady, in the best sense of the word, Miss Eyrecourt's romantic adventure has justified itself. I wouldn't recommend her to run the same risk a second time."

"I suppose you know what Romayne thinks of it?"

"Not yet. I have been too busy to call on him since I have been in town. Pardon me, Lady Loring, who is that beautiful creature in the pale yellow dress? Surely I have seen her somewhere before?"

"That beautiful creature, Major, is the bold young lady of whose conduct you don't approve."

"Miss Eyrecourt?"

"Yes."

"I retract everything I said!" cried the Major, quite shamelessly. "Such a woman as that may do anything. She is looking this way. Pray introduce me."

The Major was introduced, and Lady Loring returned to her guests.

"I think we have met before, Major Hynd," said Stella.

Her voice supplied the missing link in the Major's memory of events.

Remembering how she had looked at Romayne on the deck of the steamboat, he began dimly to understand Miss Eyrecourt's otherwise incomprehensible anxiety to be of use to the General's family. "I remember perfectly,"

he answered. "It was on the pa.s.sage from Boulogne to Folkestone--and my friend was with me. You and he have no doubt met since that time?" He put the question as a mere formality. The unexpressed thought in him was, "Another of them in love with Romayne! and nothing, as usual, likely to come of it."