A Gamble with Life Part 14

"Yes, from your country," he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice, "they come bringing their bad manners and their diamonds, and they hang round the fringe of what is called the 'Smart Set,' and they bribe impecunious dowagers and such like to give them introductions, and they worm their way into the big houses, and G.o.d alone knows what becomes of them afterwards. I have a brother who has a big practice in the West-end. You should hear him talk----"

"If people are rich," Madeline retorted warmly, "they have surely the right to enjoy themselves in their own way so long as they do no wrong."

"Enjoy themselves," he snorted. "Is enjoyment the end of life?--and such enjoyment! Has duty no place in the scheme of existence? Because people have grown rich through somebody else's toil----"

"Or through their own toil," she interrupted.

"Or through their own toil--if any man ever did it--are they justified in wasting their life in idle gluttony, and in wasteful and wanton extravagance?"

"Extravagance is surely a question of degree," she replied. "A hundred dollars to one man may be more than ten thousand to another."

"I admit it. But your idle profligate, whether man or woman, is an offence."

"What do you mean by profligate?"

"I mean the creature who lives to eat and drink and dress. Who s.h.i.+rks every duty and responsibility, who panders to every gluttonous and selfish desire. Who hears the cry of suffering and never helps, who wastes his or her substance in finding fresh sources of so-called enjoyment, or discovering new thrills of sensation."

"But we surely have a right to enjoy ourselves?"

"Of course we have. But not after the fas.h.i.+on of swine. We are not animals. We are men and women with intellectual vision and moral responsibility. The true life lies along the road of duty and help and goodwill."

"Yes, I agree with you in that. But I do not like to hear anyone speak slightingly of my country people."

"For your country and your people as a whole, I have the greatest respect. But every country has its sn.o.bs and its parasites; and it is humbling that our own great army of idle profligates should receive recruits from the great Republic of the West."

When Dr. Pendarvis had gone Madeline sat for a long time staring out of the window, but seeing nothing of the fair landscape on which her eyes rested. She tried to recall what it was that led their conversation into such a serious channel. To say the least of it, it was not a little strange that he should have taken the hazy and nebulous efforts of her own brain, and shaped them into clear and definite speech. The life of ease and pleasure and self-indulgence to which she had looked forward with so much interest and with such childish delight, he had denounced with a vigour she had half resented, and which all the while she felt answered to the deepest emotions of her nature.

She took the Captain's letter from the envelope and read it again. It was a most proper letter in every respect. There was not a word or syllable that anyone could take the slightest exception to. The love-making was intense and yet restrained, the pleading eloquent and even tender, the prospect pictured such as any ordinary individual would hail with delight. What was it that it lacked?

It seemed less satisfying since her talk with the doctor than before.

The Captain pleaded for an answer by return of post. He wanted to have the a.s.surance before he left India for home. He was tired of roughing it and wanted to look forward to long years of domestic peace. If the engagement were settled now they would be able to set up a house of their own soon after his return.

She put away the letter after reading it through twice, and heaved a long sigh.

"If it had come a week ago," she said to herself, "I should have answered 'Yes' without any misgiving. But now, everything seems changed. Perhaps I shall feel differently when I get out of doors again."

On the following day she took a ramble in the rose garden, and sat for an hour on the lawn in the suns.h.i.+ne. On the second day she strayed into the plantation beyond the park, and on the third day she ventured on to the Downs, and came at length to the high point on the cliffs where she first met Rufus Sterne. Here she sat down and looked seaward, and thought of home and all that had happened since she left it.

The plan of her life which had looked so clear was becoming more and more hazy and confused. Was Providence interposing to upset its own arrangements? Was she to tread a different path from what she had pictured.

The fresh air brought the colour back to her cheeks again, and vigour to her limbs, but it did not clear away the mists that hung about her brain and heart. The Captain's letter remained day after day unanswered.

"If I were engaged to the Captain," she said to herself, reflectively, "It might not be considered proper for me to call on Rufus Sterne. But while I am free, I am free. He saved my life, and it would be mean of me not to call. So I shall follow my heart"; and she rose to her feet and turned her steps towards home.

CHAPTER X

A VISITOR

Mrs. Tuke came into the room on tip-toe, and closed the door softly behind her. There was a mysterious expression in her eyes, and she began at once to straighten the chairs and re-arrange the antimaca.s.sars. Her best parlour had been turned, for the time being, into a bedroom. To carry Rufus Sterne up the steep and narrow staircase was a task the fishermen refused to undertake, especially as Rufus had pleaded to be allowed to remain on the sofa. So a bed had been set up in the parlour--not without serious misgivings on the part of Mrs. Tuke, though she admitted the convenience of the arrangement later on. After Mrs.

Tuke had arranged the furniture and antimaca.s.sars to her satisfaction, she advanced to the side of the bed.

"A lady has called to see you," she said, in an awed whisper.

"A lady?" Rufus questioned, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows.

Mrs. Tuke nodded.

"To see me or simply to inquire?"

"To see you."

"Do I know the lady?" and a faint tinge of colour came into his cheek.

"I suppose so. You ought to do at any rate. It's that scare-away American as is staying at the Hall." And Mrs. Tuke turned and looked apprehensively toward the door.

Rufus felt his heart give a sudden bound, but he answered quietly enough: "Is she waiting in the pa.s.sage?"

"No, I turned her into your room. Are you going to see her?"

"Most certainly. I think it is awfully kind of her to call."

"I suppose being a furrener explains things?"

"Explains what, Mrs. Tuke?"

"Well, in my day young ladies had different notions of what was the proper thing to do."

"No doubt, Mrs. Tuke; but the world keeps advancing, you see."

"Keeps advancing, do you call it. I am thankful that none of my girls was brought up that way." And Mrs. Tuke walked with her most stately gait out of the room.

Rufus waited with rapidly beating heart. For days past--ever since the pain had become bearable, in fact--he had been longing for a glimpse of the sweet face that had captivated his fancy from the first. That she would call to see him he did not antic.i.p.ate for a moment. That she had made inquiries concerning his condition he knew from his conversations with Dr. Pendarvis. More than that he could not expect, whatever he might desire. Hence, to be told that she was in the house, that she was waiting to see him, seemed to set vibrating every nerve he possessed.

He heard a faint murmur of voices coming across the narrow lobby, and wondered what Mrs. Tuke was saying to her visitor. He hoped she would not feel it inc.u.mbent upon her to unburden her puritanical soul. When Mrs. Tuke was "drawn out," as she expressed it, she sometimes used great plainness of speech. At such times neither rank nor station counted. To clear her conscience was the supreme thing.

On the present occasion, however, Madeline got the first innings. She guessed from the set of Mrs. Tuke's lips that she did not altogether approve. Moreover, she was afraid that on the occasion of her first visit--when Mrs. Tuke revived her with burnt feathers--she had not made a very good impression.

Madeline came, therefore, fully armed and prepared to use all her wiles.

She waited with a good deal of trepidation until Mrs. Tuke returned from her lodger's room.

"What a n.o.ble, generous soul you must be, Mrs. Tuke," she said, and she looked straight into the cold, blue eyes and smiled her sweetest.

Mrs. Tuke drew herself up and frowned.