Phyllis of Philistia Part 22

"No; he left us in the evening for Southampton," said Phyllis.

"And, curiously enough, I dined with him at the club," said her father.

"Yes, he came in with Herbert Courtland at half-past seven; he had met Courtland and persuaded him to join him in his cruise to Norway. They dined at my table, and by the time we had finished Courtland's man had arrived with his bag. He had sent the man a message from the club to pack. They left by the eight-forty train, and I expect they are well under way by this time."

"That's quite too bad of Courtland," said Mr. Linton. "I wanted to have a talk with him--a rather serious talk."

Ella had listened to Mr. Ayrton's account of that little dinner party at the club with white cheeks--a moment before they had been red--and with her lips tightly closed. Her hands were clenched until the tips of the nails were biting into each of her palms, before he had come to the end of his story--a story of one incident. But when her husband had spoken her hands relaxed. The blaze that had come to her eyes for a second went out without a flicker.

"A serious talk?" she murmured.

"A serious talk--about the mine," replied her husband.

"About the mine," she repeated, and a moment after burst into a laugh that was almost startling in its insincerity. "It is so amusing, this chapter of cross-purposes," she cried. "What a sight it has been! a night of thrilling surprises to all of us! I miss Phyllis by half an hour and my husband misses me by less than half an hour. He comes at express speed from Paris to have a talk, a serious talk, with Mr.

Courtland about the mine, and while he is driving from Victoria, Mr.

Courtland is driving to the same station with Lord Earlscourt!"

"What a series of fatalities!" said Mr. Ayrton. "But what seemed to me most amusing was the persuasiveness of Earlscourt. He has only to speak half a dozen words to Courtland, and off he goes to Norway at a moment's notice with probably the most uncongenial boat's load that Courtland ever sailed with, and he must have done a good deal in that way in New Guinea waters. Now, why should Courtland take such a turn?"

"Ah, why, indeed!" cried Mrs. Linton. "Yes, that is, as you say, the most amusing part of the whole evening of cross-purposes. Why should he run away just at this time--to-night--to-night?"

"What is there particular about to-night that Courtland's running away should seem doubly erratic?" asked Mr. Linton, after a little pause. He had his eyes fixed coldly upon his wife's face.

She turned to him and laughed quite merrily.

"What is there particular about to-night?" she repeated. "Why, have you not arrived from Paris to-night to have that serious talk with him about the mine? Doesn't it seem to you doubly provoking that he didn't stay until to-morrow or that you didn't arrive yesterday? Why, why, why did he run away to-night before nine?"

"Why before nine?" said her husband.

"Heavens! Was not that the hour when you arrived home? You said so just now," she cried. Then she picked up her wrap. Phyllis had thrown it over a chair when it had lain in a heap on the floor as Cleopatra's wrap may have lain when she was carried into the presence of her lover. "My dear Stephen, don't you think that as it is past nine, and Mr. Courtland is probably some miles out at sea with his head reposing on something hard,--there is nothing soft about a yacht,--we should make a move in the direction of home? It seems pretty clear that you will have no serious talk with him to-night. Alas! my Phyllis, our dream of happiness is over. We are to be separated by the cruelty of man, as usual.

Good-night, my dear! Good-night, Mr. Ayrton! Pray forgive us for keeping you out of bed so long; and receive my thanks for restoring my long-lost husband to my arms. Didn't you say that the hansom was waiting, Stephen?"

"I expect the man has been asleep for the last half-hour," said her husband.

"I hope nothing has gone astray with the gold mine," said she. "Hasn't someone made a calculation regarding the acc.u.mulation of a s.h.i.+lling hansom fare at compound interest when the driver is kept waiting? It is like the sum about the nails in the horse's shoe. We shall be ruined if we remain here much longer."

"Ah, my dear," said Mr. Ayrton, when he had kissed her hand, and straightened the sable collar of her wrap; "ah, my dear, a husband is a husband."

"Even when he stays away from his wife for three months at a time?" said Ella.

"Not in spite of that, but on account of it," said Mr. Ayrton. "Have you been married all these years without finding that out?"

"Good-night!" said she.

CHAPTER XXII.

HE HAD EXPLAINED TO PHYLLIS ONCE THAT HE THOUGHT OF G.o.d ONLY AS A PRINCIPLE.

The sound of the hansom wheels died away before the father and daughter exchanged a word. Mr. Ayrton was the first to speak.

"It seems to have been a night of mischance," said he.

"I am very glad that Mr. Linton has returned," said she.

"What? Now, why should you be glad of that very ordinary incident?"

"Why? Oh, papa, I am so fond of her!"

"She may be fond of him, after all."

Mr. Ayrton spoke musingly.

"Of course she is," said Phyllis, with a positiveness that was designed to convince herself that she believed her own statement.

"And he may be fond of her--yes, at times," resumed Mr. Ayrton. "That toilet of hers seems to have been the only happy element in the game of cross-purposes which was played to-night."

"Ah," whispered the girl.

"Yes; it was in inspiration. She could not have expected her husband to-night. What a dress! Even a husband would be compelled to admit its fascination. And she said she meant to wear it at the opera to-night. It was scarcely an opera toilet, was it?"

"Ella's taste is never at fault, papa."

"I suppose not. I wonder if he is capable of appreciating the--the--let us say, the inspiration of that toilet. Is that, I wonder, the sort of dress that a man likes his wife to wear when she welcomes him home after an absence of some months? No matter it was exquisite in every detail.

Curious, her coming here and waiting after she had learned that you were out, was it not; from nine o'clock--that fateful hour!--to-night."

"I think she must have felt--lonely," said Phyllis. "She seemed so glad to see me--so relieved. She meant to stay with me all night, poor thing!

Oh, why should her husband stay away from her for months at a time? It is quite disgraceful!"

"I think that we had better go to bed," said her father. "If we begin to discuss abstract questions of temperament we may abandon all hope of sleep tonight. We might as well try to fathom Herbert Courtland's reasons for going to yacht with so uncongenial a party as Lord Earlscourt's. Good-night, my dear!"

He kissed her and went upstairs. She did not follow him immediately.

She stood in the center of the room, and over her sweet face a puzzled expression crept, as a single breath of wind pa.s.ses over the smooth surface of a lake on a day when no wind stirs a leaf.

She thought first of Herbert Courtland, which of itself was a curious incident. How did it come that he had yielded so easily to the invitation of Lord Earlscourt to accompany him on his cruise in the yacht _Water Nymph_? (Lord Earlscourt's imagination in the direction of the nomenclature of his boats as well as his horses was not unlimited.)

But this was just the question which her father had suggested as an example of a subject of profitless discussion. She remembered this, and asked herself if it was likely that she, having at her command fewer data than her father bearing upon this case, should make a better attempt than he made at its solution. Her father had seen Herbert Courtland since he had agreed to go on the cruise, and was therefore in the better position to arrive at a reasonable conclusion in regard to the source of the impulse upon which Mr. Courtland had acted; so much she thought certain. And yet her father had suggested the profitless nature of such an investigation, and her father was certainly right.

Only for a single moment did it occur to her that something she had said to Herbert Courtland when he was sitting there, there in that chair beside her, might have had its influence upon him--only for a single moment, however; then she shook her head.

No, no! that supposition was too, too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment. He had, to be sure, shown that he felt deeply the words which she had quoted as they came from Mrs. Haddon; but what could those words have to do with his sudden acceptance of Lord Earlscourt's invitation to go to Norway?

She made up her mind that it was nothing to her what course Herbert Courtland had pursued, consequently the endeavors to fathom his reason for adopting such a course would be wholly profitless. But the question of the singular moods suggested by the conduct and the words of her friend Ella Linton stood on a very different basis. Ella was her dearest friend, and nothing that she had said or done should be dismissed as profitless.

What on earth had Ella meant by appearing in that wonderful costume that night? It was not a toilet for the opera, even on a Melba night; even on a "Romeo and Juliet" night, unless, indeed, the wearer meant to appear on the stage as _Juliet_, was the thought which occurred to the girl.

Her fantastic thought--she thought it was a fantastic thought--made her smile. Unless----

And then another thought came to her which, not being fantastic, banished her smile.