Rossmoyne Part 31

"You want no explanation," indignantly. "You know very well what you confessed a while ago,--that--that--'_you were_'! _There!_"

"_Where?_"

"Flirting with Olga Bohun!"

"What?"

"You did. You know you did. Oh, what perfidy! Only a moment since you declared it openly, shamelessly; and now you deny it! Why I wouldn't have believed it, even of _you_. How _can_ you pretend to forget it?"

But that there are tears born of real emotion in her great eyes, Mr.

Desmond would a.s.suredly believe she is making a vast joke at his expense, so innocent is he of any offence.

"If by some unfortunate method," he says, calmly, "you have metamorphosed any speech of mine into a declaration relative to a flirtation with Mrs. Bohun, you have done an uncommonly clever thing.

You have turned a lie into truth. I never said even one spoony word to Olga Bohun in all my life."

"Then why," in a still much-aggrieved tone, but with strong symptoms of relenting, "did you say you were?"

"I don't remember saying it at all," says poor Mr. Desmond, who has forgotten all about his interrupted remark.

"Then what were you saying to Olga just as I came in?"

"Oh! _that!_"--brightening into a remembrance of the past by the greatest good luck, or the quarrel might have proved a final one (which would have been a sad pity, as so many right good ones followed it).

"You stopped me just now when I was going to tell you about it. When you came this evening I was dancing with Olga, and talking to her of _you_.

It was some small consolation."

"But you were smiling at her," says Monica, faltering, "and whispering to her--_whispering!_"

"Of you. You believe me? Monica, look at me. Do you know I really think that----"

But this valuable thought is forever lost. Glancing at his companion, he sees a change come over the spirit of her face. Her eyes brighten, but not with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation. Quite the reverse. She lays her hand suddenly upon his arm, and gazes into the landing-place beneath.

"There is Aunt Priscilla!" she says, in an awestruck tone. "She has just come out of that room. She is, I _know_,"--a guilty conscience making a coward of her,--"looking for me. She may come here! Go, Go!"

"But I can't leave you here alone."

"Yes, you can; you can, indeed. Only try it. Mr. Desmond, _please_ go."

This she says so anxiously that he at once decides (though with reluctance) there is nothing left him but to obey.

And, after all, Aunt Priscilla never looks up those stairs, but pa.s.ses by them, dimly lit as they are, as though they had never been built; and Desmond, unknowing of this, goes sadly into the dancing-room, ostensibly in search of Kelly, but with his mind so full of his cross little love that he does not see him, although he is within a yard of him at one time.

Now, Mr. Kelly, when he quitted the fateful staircase, had turned to his right, with a view to getting some friend to lounge against a doorway with him, but, failing in this quest, had entered the dancing-room, and edged round it by degree,--not so much from a desire for motion as because he was elbowed ever onwards by tired dancers who sought the friendly support of the walls.

Reaching at length a certain corner, he determines to make his own of it and defend it against all a.s.sailants, be they men or Amazons.

It is a charming corner, and almost impregnable; it is for this very reason also almost unescapable, as he learns to his cost later on.

However, he comes to anchor here, and looks around him.

He is quite enjoying himself, and is making private comments on his friends that I have no doubt would be rapturously received by them could they only hear them, when he wakes to the fact that two people have come to a standstill just before him. They are engaged in not only an animated but an amicable discussion, and are laughing gayly: as laughter is even more distinguishable in a crowd than the voice when in repose, Mr. Kelly is attracted by theirs, and to his astonishment discovers that his near neighbors are the deadly enemies of an hour agone,--_i. e._, Mrs. Bohun and Ulic Ronayne.

No faintest trace of spleen is to be discovered in their tones. All is once more suns.h.i.+ne. Past storms are forgotten. They have evidently been carrying on their discussion for a considerable time whilst dancing, because it is only the very end of it that is reserved for Mr. Kelly's delectation. He, poor man, is hemmed in on every side, and finds to his horror he cannot make his escape. This being so, he resigns himself with a grim sense of irony to the position allotted him by fate, and being a careful man, makes up his mind, too, to derive what amus.e.m.e.nt from it that he can.

"So you see everything depends upon judgment," says the fair widow, fanning herself languidly, but smiling archly.

"A good deal, certainly."

"_Everything_, _I_ say. Determination to succeed, and the power to do it, are strong in themselves; but judgment tempers all things. And how few possess all three!"

"I, at least, am grateful for that. If every one was endowed with those three irresistible forces, I should have a bad chance. I should be but one among so many. Then it could only be decided by brute force."

"What could?" asks she, turning a fair but amazed face up to his.

"Oh, nothing!" returns he, with some confusion. "Only some silly thought of my own private brain,--not the part I was devoting to your argument.

Forgive me. You were saying----"

"That there is a tremendous amount of feebleness in most natures. The real clever thing is to be able to see when an opportunity for good arises, and then to grasp it. Most people can't see it, you know."

"Others _can_!" says Mr. Ronayne. As he speaks he pa.s.ses his arm round her pretty waist and smiles saucily into her eyes.

"What!" exclaims she, smiling in turn, "am I an opportunity, then?"

"The sweetest one I know, and so I seize it," says the audacious youth; while Mr. Kelly, behind, feels as if he was going to sink into the ground.

"You don't understand what the word means, you silly boy," says the widow, laughing gayly.

"Don't I! I only wish I might pa.r.s.e and _spell_ it with you," says Ronayne, his spirits rising; at which answer, I regret to say, pretty Mrs. Bohun laughs again merrily, and suffers him to lead her away into the dancing-circle without a rebuke, leaving Mr. Kelly limp with fear of discovery.

Now, his imprisonment being at an end, he leaves his corner, and, braving the anger of the dancing people, walks straight through their midst to the door beyond, ready to endure anything rather than the eavesdropping, however innocent, of a moment past.

Filled therefore with courage, he sallies forth, and on the landing outside encounters the two Misses Blake clothed for departure, with Monica and Kit beside them. Terence is still bidding adieu to Miss Fitzgerald whose tall charms have worked a way into his youthful affections.

Desmond is standing at a little distance from this group; Mr. Ryde is in the midst of it. He is expostulating with Monica about the cruelty of her early departure, in a tone that savors of tenderness and rouses in Mr. Desmond's breast a hearty desire to kick him. Then Mr. Ryde carries on his expostulations to where Aunt Priscilla is standing; and Brian tries vainly to gain a last glance from Monica, if only to see whether the treaty of peace between them--interrupted a while ago--has been really signed or not.

But Monica, either through wilfulness or ignorance of his near locality, or perhaps fear of Miss Priscilla, refuses to meet his longing eyes. For my part, I believe in the wilfulness.

Kit, who is always like the c.o.c.kles of ancient fame, "_alive O_," sees his disconsolate face, his earnest, unrequited glance, and Monica's a.s.sumed or real indifference, and feels sad at heart for him.

Deliberately, and with a sweet, grave smile, she holds out to him her small hand, and, regardless of consequences, gives his a hearty squeeze.

Most thankfully he acknowledges this courtesy; whereupon, of her still further charity, she bestows upon him a glance from her dark eyes that speaks volumes and a.s.sures him he has in her a friend at court.

Then all is over. The two Misses Blake go slowly and with caution down the steep staircase, Monica and Mr. Ryde (who grows more devoted every minute) following, Terence and Kit bringing up the rear.

During the drive home the Misses Blake (who have thoroughly enjoyed themselves) are both pleasant and talkative. As the old horses jog steadily along the twilit road, they converse in quite a lively fas.h.i.+on of all they have heard and noticed, and laugh demurely over many a small joke.

Kit of course, is in raptures. Her _first_ party and _such_ a success!

She had danced one set of quadrilles and one polka! _two_ whole dances!

Ye G.o.ds, was there ever so happy a child! She chatters, and laughs, and rallies everybody so gayly that the old aunts are fain to die of merriment.

Yet Monica, who might--an' she chose--have had two partners for every dance, is strangely silent and depressed. No word escapes her: she leans back with her pretty tired head pressed close against the cus.h.i.+ons.

Perchance little Kit notices all this; because when any one addresses Monica she makes answer for her in the most careless manner possible, and by her sharp wit turns the attention of all from the sister she adores; yet in her heart she is angry with Monica.