The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 72

"Yes--since June."

"Through the election?"

"Yes." Diana turned her face away. Lady Niton could see the extreme delicacy to which the profile had fined down, the bluish or purple shadows here and there on the white skin. Something glittered in the old woman's eyes. She put out a hand from the queer flounced mantle, made out of an ancient evening dress, in which she was arrayed, and touched Diana's.

"You know--you've heard--about those poor things at Tallyn?"

Diana made a quick movement. Her eyes were on the speaker.

"How is Mr. Marsham?"

Lady Niton shook her head. She opened a hand-bag on her wrist, took out a letter, and put on her eye-gla.s.ses.

"This is Lucy--arrived this morning. It don't sound well. 'Come when you can, my dear Elizabeth--you will be very welcome. But I do not know how I have the courage to ask you. We are a depressing pair, Oliver and I.

Oliver has been in almost constant pain this last week. If it goes on we must try morphia. But before that we shall see another doctor. I dread to think of morphia. Once begin it, and what will be the end? I sit here alone a great deal--thinking. How long did that stone take to throw?--a few seconds, perhaps? And here is my son--my poor son!--broken and helpless--perhaps for life. We have been trying a secretary to write for him and read to him, for the blindness increases, but it has not been a success.'"

Diana rose abruptly and walked to the window, where she stood, motionless--looking out--her back turned to Lady Niton. Her companion glanced at her--lifted her eyebrows--hesitated--and finally put the letter back into her pocket. There was an awkward silence, when Diana suddenly returned to Lady Niton's side.

"Where is Miss Drake?" she said, sharply. "Is the marriage put off?"

"Marriage!" Lady Niton laughed. "Alicia and Oliver? H'm. I don't think we shall hear much more of that!"

"I thought it was settled."

"Well, as soon as I heard of the accident and Oliver's condition, I wondered to myself how long that young woman would keep it up. I have no doubt the situation gave her a disturbed night or two, Alicia never can have had: the smallest intention of spending her life, or the best years of it, in nursing a sick husband. On the other hand, money is money. So she went off to the Treshams', to see if there was no third course--that's how I read it."

"The Treshams'?--a visit?--since the accident?"

"Don't look so astonished, my dear. You don't know the Alicias of this world. But I admit we should be dull without them. There's a girl at the Feltons' who has just come down from the Treshams', and I wouldn't have missed her stories of Alicia for a great deal. She's been setting her cap, it appears, at Lord Philip. However" (Lady Niton chuckled) "_there_ she's met her match."

"Rut they _are_ engaged?" said Diana, in bewildered interrogation.

The little lady's laugh rang out--shrill and cracked--like the crow of a bantam.

"She and Lord Philip? Trust Lord Philip!"

"No, I didn't mean that!"

"She and Oliver? I've no doubt Oliver thinks--or thought--they were.

What view he takes now, poor fellow, I'm sure I don't know. But I don't somehow think Alicia will be able to carry on the game indefinitely.

Lady Lucy is losing patience."

Diana sat in silence. Lady Niton could not exactly decipher her. But she guessed at a conflict between a scrupulous or proud unwillingness to discuss the matter at all or hear it discussed, and some motive deeper still and more imperative.

"Lady Lucy has been ill too?" Diana inquired at last, in the same voice of constraint.

"Oh, very unwell indeed. A poor, broken thing! And there don't seem to be anybody to look after them. Mrs. Fotheringham is about as much good as a broomstick. Every family ought to keep a supply of superfluous girls. They're like the army--useless in peace and indispensable in war.

Ha! here's Sir James."

Both ladies perceived Sir James, coming briskly up the garden path. As she saw him a thought struck Diana--a thought which concerned Lady Niton. It broke down the tension of her look, and there was the gleam of a smile--sad still, and touching--in the glance she threw at her companion. She had been asked to tea to meet a couple of guests from London with whose affairs she was well acquainted; and she too thought Sir James had been playing Providence.

Sir James, evidently conscious, saw the raillery in her face, pinched her fingers as she gave him her hand, and Diana, pa.s.sing him, escaped to the garden, very certain that she should find the couple in question somewhere among its shades.

Lady Niton examined Sir James--looked after Diana.

"Look here!" she said, abruptly; "what's up? You two understand something I don't. Out with it!"

Sir James, who could always blush like a girl, blushed.

"I vow that I am as innocent as a babe unborn!"

"What of?" The tone of the demand was like that of a sword in the drawing.

"I have some guests here to-day."

"Who are they?"

"A young man you know--a young woman you would like to know."

Silence. Lady Niton sat down again.

"Kindly ring the bell," she said, lifting a peremptory hand, "and send for my carriage."

"Let me parley an instant," said Sir James, moving between her and the bell. "Bobbie is just off to Berlin. Won't you say good-bye to him?"

"Mr. Forbes's movements are entirely indifferent to me--ring!" Then, shrill-voiced--and with sudden fury, like a bird ruffling up: "Berlin, indeed! More waste--more s.h.i.+rking! He needn't come to me! I won't give him another penny."

"I don't advise you to offer it," said Sir James, with suavity. "Bobbie has got a post in Berlin through his uncle, and is going off for a twelvemonth to learn banking."

Lady Niton sat blinking and speechless. Sir James drew the muslin curtain back from the window.

"There they are, you see--Bobbie--and the Explanation. And if you ask me, I think the Explanation explains."

Lady Niton put up her gold-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"She is not in the least pretty!" she said, with hasty venom, her old hand shaking.

"No, but fetching--and a good girl. She wors.h.i.+ps her Bobbie, and she's sending him away for a year."

"I won't allow it!" cried Lady Niton. "He sha'n't go."

Sir James shrugged his shoulders.

"These are domestic brawls--I decline them. Ah!" He turned to the window, opening it wide. She did not move. He made a sign, and two of the three persons who had just appeared on the lawn came running toward the house. Diana loitered behind.

Lady Niton looked at the two young faces as they reached her side--the mingling of laughter and anxiety in the girl's, of pride and embarra.s.sment in Bobbie's.

"You sha'n't go to Berlin!" she said to him, vehemently, as she just allowed him to take her hand.