The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 25

"But I go fasting even for that crust."

"Not always," she replied softly, shooting a glance at me. "Not always, Mr. Buckler; and have you not found at times some b.u.t.ter on the bread?"

She smiled as she spoke, but I hardened my heart against her and vouchsafed no answer. For a little while she stood with her eyes upon the ground, and then:

"Oh, very well, very well!" she said petulantly, and turning away from me, flung the fan on to the table. The table was of polished mahogany, and the fan slid across its surface and dropped to the floor. I stepped forward, and knelt down to pick it up.

"What, Mr. Buckler!" she said bitterly, turning again to me, "you condescend to kneel. Surely it is not you; it must be some one else."

I thought that I had never heard sarcasm so unjust, for in truth kneeling to her had been my chief occupation this many a day, and I replied hotly, bethinking me of Marston and the episode which I had witnessed in the Park.

"Indeed, madame, and you may well think it strange, for have I not seen you drop your fan in order to deceive the man who picks it up?"

With that I got to my feet and laid the fan on the table.

She flushed very red, and exclaimed hurriedly:

"All that can be explained."

"No doubt! no doubt!" I replied. "I have never doubted the subtlety of madame's invention."

She drew herself up with great pride, and bowed to me.

I walked to the door. As I opened it, I turned to take one last look at the face which I had so wors.h.i.+pped. It was very white; even the lips were bloodless, and oddly enough I noticed that she wore a loose white gown as on the occasion of our first meeting.

"Adieu," I said, and stepped behind the door.

From the other side of it her voice came to me quietly:

"Does this prove the sword to be lath or steel?"

I shut the door, and went slowly down the stairs, slowly and yet more slowly. For her last question drummed at my heart.

"Lath or steel?" Was I playing a man's part, or was I the mere bond-slave of a petty pride? "That can be explained," she had said.

What if it could? Then the sword would be proved lath indeed! Just to salve my vanity I should have wasted my life--and only _my_ life? I saw her lips trembling as the thought shot through me.

What if those walks with my rival beneath my window had been devised in some strange way for a test--a woman's test and touchstone to essay the metal of the sword, a test perhaps intelligible to a woman, though an enigma to me? If only I knew a woman whom I could consult!

My feet lagged more and more, but I reached the bottom of the stairs in the end. The hall was empty. I looked up towards the landing with a wild hope that she would come out and lean over the bal.u.s.trade, as on the evening when Elmscott first brought me to the house. But there was no stir or movement from garret to cellar. I might have stood in the hall of the Sleeping Palace. From a high window the sunlight slanted athwart the cool gloom in a golden pillar, and a fly buzzed against the pane. I crossed the hall, and let myself out into the noonday. The door clanged behind me with a hollow rattle; it sounded to my hearing like the closing of the gates of a tomb, and I felt it was myself that lay dead behind it.

As I pa.s.sed beneath the window, something hard dropped upon the crown of my hat, and bounced thence to the ground at my feet. I picked it up. It was a crust of bread. For a s.p.a.ce I stood looking at it before I understood. Then I rushed back to the entrance. The door stood open, but the hall was empty and silent as when I left it. I sprang up the stairs, and in my haste missed my footing about halfway up, and rolled down some half-a-dozen steps. The crash of my fall echoed up the well of the staircase, and from behind the parlour door I heard some one laugh. I got on to my legs, and burst into the room.

Ilga was seated before a frame of embroidery very demure and busy. She paid no heed to me, keeping her head bent over her work until I had approached close to the frame. Then she looked up with her eyes sparkling.

"How dare you?" she asked, in a mock accent of injury.

"I don't know," I replied meekly.

She bent once more over her embroidery.

"Humours are the prerogative of my s.e.x," she said.

"I set you apart from it."

"Is that why you cannot trust me even a little?"

The gentle reproach made me hot with shame. I had no words to answer it. Then she laughed again, bending closer over her frame, in a low joyous note that gradually rose and trilled out sweet as music from a thrush.

"And so," she said, "you came all trim and spruce in your fine new clothes to show me what my discourtesy had lost me! What a child you are! And yet," she rose suddenly, her whole face changing, "and yet, are you a child? Would G.o.d I knew!" She ended with a pa.s.sionate cry, clasping her hands together upon her breast; but before I could make head or tail of her meaning she was half-way through another mood.

"Ah!" she cried, "you have brought my courtesy back with you." I had not noticed until then that I still held the crust in my hand. "You shall swallow it as a penance."

"Madame!" I laughed.

"Hus.h.!.+ you shall eat it. Yes, yes!" with a pretty imperious stamp of the foot. "Now! Before you speak a word!"

I obeyed her, but with some difficulty, for the crust was very dry.

"You see," she said, "courtesy is not always so tasteful a morsel. It sticks in the throat at times;" and crossing to a sideboard, she filled a goblet from a decanter of canary and brought it to me.

"You will pledge me first," I entreated.

Her face grew serious, and she balanced the cup doubtfully in her hand.

"Of a truth," she said, "of a truth I will." She raised it slowly to her lips; but at that moment the door opened.

"Oh!" cried Mademoiselle Durette, with a start of surprise, "I fancied that Mr. Buckler had gone," and she was for whipping out of the room again, but Ilga called to her. The astonishment of the Frenchwoman made one point clear to me concerning which I felt some curiosity. I mean that 'twas not she who had set the hall-door open for my return.

"Clemence!" said the Countess, setting down the wine untasted, as I noticed with regret, "will you bid Otto come to me? I ransacked Mr.

Buckler's rooms, and it is only fair that I should show him my poor treasures in return."

She handed a key to Otto, and bade him unlock a j.a.pan cabinet which stood in a corner. He drew out a tray heaped up with curiosities, medals and trinkets, and bringing it over, laid it on a table in the window.

"I have bought them all since I came to London. You shall tell me whether I have been robbed."

"You come to the worst appraiser in the world," said I, "for these ornaments tell me nothing of their value though much of your industry."

"I have a great love for these trifles," said she, though her action seemed to belie her words, for she tossed and rattled them hither and thither upon the tray with rapid jerks of her fingers which would have made a virtuoso s.h.i.+ver. "They hint so much of bygone times, and tell so provokingly little."

"Their example, at all events, affords a lesson in discretion," I laughed.

"Which our poor s.e.x is too trustful to learn, and yours too distrustful to forget."

There was a certain accent of appeal in her voice, very tender and sweet, as though she knew my story and was ready to forgive it. Had we been alone I believe that I should have blurted the whole truth out; only Otto Krax stood before me on the opposite side of the table, Mademoiselle Durette was seated in the room behind.

Ilga had ceased to sort the articles, and now began to point out particular trinkets, describing their purposes and antiquity and the shops where she had discovered them. But I paid small heed to her words; that question--did she know?--pressed too urgently upon my thoughts. A glance at the stolid indifference of Otto Krax served to rea.s.sure me. Through him alone could suspicion have come, and I felt certain that he had as yet not recognised me.

Besides, I reflected, had she known, it was hardly in nature that she should have spoken so gently. I dismissed the suspicion from my mind, and turned me again to the inspection of the tray.

Just below my eyes lay a miniature of a girl, painted very delicately upon a thin oval slip of ivory. The face was dark in complexion, with black hair, the nose a trifle tip-tilted, and the lips full and red, but altogether a face very alluring and handsome. I was most struck, however, with the freshness of the colours; amongst those old curios the portrait shone like a gem. I took it up, and as I did so, Otto Krax leaned forward.