April's Lady Part 15

"That's because it is unanswerable," says Mr. Browne complacently. "You are beaten, you----"

There is a sound outside the door; Joyce with her hand on the handle of it, steps back and looks round nervously at d.i.c.ky. A quick color has dyed her cheeks; instinctively she moves a little to one side and gives a rapid glance into a long mirror.

"I don't think really he could find a fault," says Mr. Browne mischievously. "I should think there will be a good deal of hankering going on to-night."

Miss Kavanagh has only just barely time to wither him, when Beauclerk comes hurriedly in.

CHAPTER XI.

"Thinkest thou there are no serpents in the world But those who slide along the gra.s.sy sod, And sting the luckless foot that presses them?

There are, who in the path of social life Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's son, And sting the soul."

"Oh, there you are," cries he jovially. "Been looking for you everywhere. The music has begun; first dance just forming. Gay and lively quadrille, you know--country ball wouldn't know itself without a beginning like that. Come; come on."

Nothing can exceed his _bonhomie_. He tucks her hand in the most delightfully genial, appropriative fas.h.i.+on under his arm, and with a beaming nod to Mr. Browne (he never forgets to be civil to anybody) hurries Joyce out of the room, leaving the astute d.i.c.ky gazing after him with mingled feelings in his eye.

"Deuce and all of a smart chap," says Mr. Browne to himself slowly. "But he'll fall through some day for all that, I shouldn't wonder."

Meantime Mr. Beauclerk is still carrying on a charming recitative.

"_Such a bore!_" he is saying, with heartfelt disgust in his tone. It is really wonderful how he can _always_ do it. There is never a moment when he flags. He is for ever up to time as it were, and equal to the occasion. "I'm afraid you rather misunderstood me just now, when I said I'd been looking for you--but the fact is, Browne's such an a.s.s, if he knew we had made an appointment to meet in the library, he'd have brayed the whole affair to any and every one."

"Was there an appointment?" says Miss Kavanagh, who is feeling a little unsettled--a little angry with herself perhaps.

"No--no," with a delightful acceptation of her rebuke. "You are right as ever. I was wrong. But then, you see, it gave me a sort of joy to believe that our light allusion to a possible happy half-hour before the turmoil of the dance began might mean something _more_--something----Ah!

well never mind! Men are vain creatures; and after all it would have been a happy half-hour to me _only_!"

"Would it?" says she with a curious glance at him.

"_You_ know that!" says he, with the full and earnest glance he can turn on at a second's notice without the slightest injury to heart or mind.

"I don't indeed."

"Oh well, you haven't time to think about it perhaps. I found you very fully occupied when--at last--I was able to get to the library. Browne we all know is a very--er--lively companion--if rather wanting in the higher virtues."

"'_At last_,'" says she quoting his words. She turns suddenly and looks at him, a world of inquiry in her dark eyes. "I hate pretence," says she curtly, throwing up her young head with a haughty movement. "You said you would be in the library at such an hour, and though I did not _promise_ to meet you there, still, as I happened to be dressed earlier than I believed possible, I came down, and you----? Where were you?"

There is a touch of imperiousness in that last question that augurs badly for a false wooer; but the imperiousness suits her. With her pretty chin uptilted, and that little scornful curve upon her lips, and her lovely eyes ablaze, she looks indeed "a thing of beauty." Beauclerk regards her with distinct approbation. After all--had she even _half_ the money that the heiress possesses, _what_ a wife she would make. And it isn't decided yet one way or the other; sometimes Fate is kind. The day may come when this delectable creature may fall to his portion.

"I can see you are thinking hard things of me," says he reproachfully; "but you little know how I have been pa.s.sing the time I had so been looking forward to. Time to be pa.s.sed with _you_. That old Lady Blake--she _would_ keep me maundering to her about that son of hers in the Mauritius; _you_ know he and I were at St. Petersburg together. I couldn't get away. You blame me--but what was I to do? An old woman--unhappy----"

"Oh no. You were _right_," says Joyce quickly. How good he is after all, and how unjustly she had been thinking of him. So kind, so careful of the feelings of a tiresome old woman. How few men are like him. How few would so far sacrifice themselves.

"Ah, you see it like that!" says, Mr. Beauclerk, not triumphantly, but so modestly that the girl's heart goes out to him even more. How _generous_ he is! Not a word of rebuke to her for her vile suspicion of him.

"Why you put me into good spirits again," says he laughing gaily. "We must make haste, I fear, if we would save the first dance."

"Oh yes--come," says Joyce going quickly forward. Evidently he is going to ask her for the first dance! That _shows_ that he prefers her to----

"I'm so glad you have been able to sympathize with me about my last disappointment," says Beauclerk. "If you hadn't--if you had had even one hard thought of me, I don't know _how_ I should have been able to endure what still lies before me. I am almost raging with anger, but when one's sister is in question----"

"You mean?" say Joyce a little faintly.

"Oh, you haven't heard. I am so annoyed myself about it, that I fancied everybody knew. You know I hoped that you would have been good enough to give me the first dance, but when Isabel asked me to dance it with that dreadful daughter of Lady Duns...o...b..'s, what _could_ I do, now I ask you?" appealing to her with hands and eyes. "What _could_ I do?"

"Obey, of course," says she with an effort, but a successful one. "You must hurry too, if you want to secure Miss Duns...o...b..."

"Ah; what a misfortune it is to be the brother of one's hostess," says he, with a sort of comic despair. His eyes are centred on her face, reading her carefully, and with much secret satisfaction;--rapid as that slight change upon her face had been, he had seen and noted it.

"It couldn't possibly be a misfortune to be Lady Baltimore's brother,"

says she smiling. "On the contrary, you are to be congratulated."

"Not just at this moment surely!"

"At this or any other moment. Ah!"--as they enter the ballroom. "The room is already fuller than I thought. Engaged, Mr. Blake?" to Lord Blake's eldest son. "No, not for this. Yes, with pleasure."

She makes a little charming inclination of her head to Beauclerk, and laying her hand on Mr. Blake's arm, moves away with him to where a set is already forming at the end of the room. It is without enthusiasm she takes her place with Dysart and one of the O'Donovan girls as _vis-a-vis_, and prepares to march, retreat, twist and turn with the best of them.

"A dull old game," she is irreverently terming the quadrilles--that ma.s.sing together of inelegant movements so dear to the bucolic mind--that saving clause for the old maids and the wall-flowers; when a little change of position shows her the double quartette on the right hand side of the magnificent ballroom.

She had been half through an unimportant remark to Mr. Blake, but she stops short now and forgets to finish it. Her color comes and goes. The sides are now prancing through _their_ performance, and she and her partner are standing still. Perhaps--_perhaps_ she was mistaken; with all these swaying idiots on every side of her she might well have mixed up one man's partner with another; and Miss Duns...o...b.. (she had caught a glimpse of her awhile ago) was surely in that set on the right hand side.

She stoops forward, regardless--_oblivious_--of her partner's surprised glance, who has just been making a very witty remark, and being a rather smart young man, accustomed to be listened to, is rather taken aback by her open indifference.

A little more forward she leans; yes, _now_--the couples part--for one moment the coast lies clear. She can see distinctly. Miss Duns...o...b.. is indeed dancing in that set but _not_ as Mr. Beauclerk's partner. Miss Maliphant has secured that enviable _role_.

Even as Joyce gazes, Beauclerk, turning his head, meets her earnest regard. He returns it with a beaming smile. Miss Maliphant, whose duty it is at this instant to advance and retire and receive without the support of a chaperone the attacks of the bold, bad man opposite, having moved out of Beauclerk's sight, the latter, with an expressive glance directed at Joyce, lifts his shoulders forlornly, and gives a serio-comic shrug of his shoulders. All to show now bored a being he is at finding himself thus the partner of the ugly heiress! It is all done in a second. An inimitable bit of acting--but unpleasant.

Joyce draws herself up. Her eyes fall away from his; unless the distance is too far, the touch of disdain that lies in them should have disconcerted even Mr. Beauclerk. Perhaps it has!

"Our turn?" says she, giving her partner a sudden beautiful glance full of fire--of life--of something that he fails to understand, but does _not_ fail to consider charming. She smiles; she grows radiant. She is a different being from a moment ago. How could he--Blake--have thought her stupid. How she takes up every word--and throws new meaning into it--and _what_ a laugh she has! Low-sweet--merry--music to its core!

Beauclerk in his turn finds a loop-hole through which to look at her, and is conscious of a faint feeling of chagrin. She oughtn't to have taken it like that. To be a little pensive--a little sad--that would have shewn a right spirit. Well--the night is long. He can play his game here and there. There is plenty of time in which to regain lost ground with one--to gain fresh ground with the other. Joyce will forgive him--when she hears _his_ version of it.

CHAPTER XII.

"If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?--Or is thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"

"Well, after all, life has its compensations," says Mr. Beauclerk, sinking upon the satin lounge beside Miss Kavanagh, and giving way to a rapturous sigh. He is looking very big and very handsome. His close-cropped eminently aristocratic head is thrown a little back, to give full play to the ecstatic smile he is directing at Joyce.

She bears it wonderfully. She receives it indeed with all the amiable imbecility of a person who doesn't understand what on earth you are talking about. Whether this reception of his little opening speech--so carefully prepared--puzzles or nettles Mr. Beauclerk there is no way of learning. He makes no sign.