The Halo Part 31

"Oh, Sophy Browne. Go on drawing, you men, I must speak to Fred. I say, Fred----"

The good-natured Ca.s.sowary tramped across to the door where the Sparrow was standing, and bending down, said something to him.

"Is he really? I say, that's too bad. But you can't change the tables, can you, dear?"

"I don't know. These kind of people are so superst.i.tious, you see; it's enough to make him glum all the evening, and Sophy was so keen--she says he looks like a bust by Rodin, and she wants to do him in pen and ink."

The Sparrow rubbed his pointed nose thoughtfully.

"Change the two of 'em to another table, can't you?"

"I've got 'em all sorted, though. Unless--I might change Billy and the Farquhar girl to their table, and put them in the boudoir balcony! Billy wouldn't mind and the Farquhar girl doesn't matter; she didn't get me those tickets, anyhow."

The Sparrow gave a little hop of satisfaction.

"Right. That'll do famously."

So the Ca.s.sowary went back to the table and laid her hand on Joyselle's sleeve. "I have put you at another table, M. Joyselle. You go to the boudoir balcony--Sophy will take you there--so it's all right. I must go and find Billy Vere now. Oh----" turning, she found herself face to face with Brigit Mead, who had just arrived.

"I say, Brigit, would you mind sitting at the table with M. Joyselle?

Eugene Struther is your man, and M. Joyselle objects to his table because it is number thirteen."

Brigit, shaking hands with her enthusiastic hostess, caught Joyselle's eye. He had heard.

"Mind? Not a bit," she answered carelessly, "if he doesn't."

Mrs. Newlyn turned, to find the top of Joyselle's head presented to her in a bow of mockly-resigned acquiescence. "Then, _that's_ all right.

What's the matter, Oliver?"

Lord Oliver Maytopp, a cherished clown in that section of society in which the Newlyns had their being, was making believe to cry, his large mouth opened grotesquely, his fists digging into his eyes.

"I d--don't want to sit at the table next Meg's," he sobbed, "when I tell funny stories she always--makes faces at me. I want to go home to Nursey."

Brigit moved away, her upper lip raised disdainfully. How odious they all were!

And how detestable the whole house with its health of art-treasures, selected by an artist friend of Newlyn's.

"_Nouveau-riche?_" asked Joyselle, joining her.

"No. That is, they are well-born, but they are _nouveau_ as regards money. Her father made a lucky speculation in electric-lighting, I think it was, after she was married. They haven't got used to their money yet.

So," she added, as they stepped out on to one of the many balconies with which the house was ornamented, "you don't object to sitting at my table?"

"_Brigitte!_"

His was of the type of face that is enn.o.bled by any strong pa.s.sion, and he looked very splendid as he towered above her, white and shaken.

"You will not leave me?" she asked, again possessed by the fear that had tormented her from the moment when he had dropped his violin the evening of the golden frock.

"Brigitte," he returned, leaning on the rail and presenting a non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, "let us not talk of that yet. I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever happens."

An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could not endure it.

"If you are going to be cruel and leave me," she said, her face taking on an expression of relentless cruelty, "you must do so at once."

He turned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean--I cannot bear suspense. If, for any reason, you are going to--to go--please go now."

He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an enemy.

"My dear--my beloved--what do you mean?" His voice was grieved and gentle. "Surely you can see that----" he broke off into French, "that the situation is not simple? That we love we cannot help--nor would we, by G.o.d!--but in an honest man and an honest woman----"

"Come along, you two," cried Mrs. Newlyn, "dinner is announced. M.

Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by your man--I forget who he is----"

"Eugene Struther," she answered quietly, "I am glad, too."

Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns, and he and she always got on fairly well. Their table was squeezed rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from another, was one of the several joys of the Ca.s.sowary's heart. So few people have gardens in London.

Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.

"Do you know Rodin's Portrait d'un Inconnu?" she asked Joyselle.

"No, madame."

"But you know Rodin?"

"I have met him."

Ecstatic was her smile.

"I knew it. And unconsciously you were his model for the Inconnu. But it is you, M. Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know."

Joyselle took an olive.

"I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know nothing of it. If you are right I am--much flattered."

Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as her friends called the grey-draped peeress, had antic.i.p.ated excitement and curiosity on Joyselle's part.

There was music somewhere in the distance, and the air was sweet with the smell of roses from the room behind them as well as from the garden below.

Struther talked little, Brigit, with her usual indifference to others, almost not at all, and as Joyselle's self-command rose only to the height of an occasional reply to the Spectre's monologue, which was not of an arresting nature, the party on the balcony was very quiet.

Brigit suffered tortures as she sat watching Joyselle. It was, then, as she had feared. He was going to be strong and make everyone miserable.

If she had been asked to propose any kind of a plan for the future, her answer would have been, when denuded of side issues and fantasy, simply that she could see nothing better than simple drifting. As yet she could not antic.i.p.ate, and it roused in her a kind of jealousy that Joyselle had so soon begun to think of Theo. His love for her should have dimmed all consideration for his son--it should have been _she_ who suggested some means of hurting the boy as little as possible.