CHAPTER XXII FACE TO FACE

I sat between Lady Olive and her younger sister at dinner, and I have no doubt that both found me very stupid and inattentive. I could neither eat nor drink, talk nor laugh. Even Lady Olive gave me up at last, and devoted her attention to Captain Hasleton, her neighbour on the other side. It was not until dinner was nearly over that I was able to rouse myself in the slightest degree, and by that time Lady Olive had quite lost her temper with me.

"Skating doesn't agree with you, Mr. Arbuthnot," she whispered, when at last Maud had given the signal to rise. "I never knew any one so provokingly stupid in all my life."

I shrugged my shoulders deprecatingly.

"I'm sorry, Lady Olive," I said, grimly, "but if you felt as I do for five minutes you'd forgive me," which was perfectly true.

She looked up at me with a pitying glance, and I suppose something in my expression told her that I was suffering, for her piquant little face clouded over at once.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Arbuthnot. You look as though you had a very bad headache. Come to me in the drawing-room as soon as you can, and I'll give you some sal volatile."

I thanked her a little absently—perhaps without sufficient gratitude, for she was a kind-hearted little woman, although she was such a terrible flirt. But I was eager to watch Maud go by—eager even to be brushed by her garments as she passed.

She half stopped as she reached me.

"I won't allow you to flirt with Lady Olive," she whispered, with a bewitching little moue; then added out loud: "Come to us as soon as ever you can, Mr. Arbuthnot. We want to commence dancing in good time."

I bowed, and letting fall the curtain, turned back to the table. Sir Francis motioned me to take the vacant place by his side, and filled my glass himself from the decanter which stood at his elbow.

"Hugh, my boy," he said, slowly—he had got into the habit of calling me Hugh lately—"I'm upset!"

I looked into his handsome old face, and saw that it was clouded over, and there was a heavy frown on his brow.

"I'm sorry, sir," I ventured to say.

"Thanks. I knew you would be. I don't suppose a man ought to be sorry because his son's coming to see him, ought he?"

It depended upon the son, I thought.

"Ay, it depends upon the son, of course," he said, thoughtfully, stroking his long grey moustache. "There is nothing against Maud's father, nothing at all. He's nothing like that young cub of his down there," he went on, jerking his head to where Francis Devereux was talking very loudly and drinking a good deal of champagne. "And yet I don't want him here. I can't bear to see him in the place. It's a damned funny thing."

"If you feel like that, sir," I said, keeping my eyes fixed upon the tablecloth, "depend upon it, it's your son's fault. He's done something to deserve it."

Sir Francis sat silent for a while, toying with his glasses.

"He has done nothing," he said, half to himself, "and yet I hate the sight of him, and he of me. It is twelve years since he set foot within Devereux Court. Twelve years! I wonder what his fancy is for coming now. Would to God he had stopped away!"

"Sir Francis," exclaimed a voice from the lower end of the table, "a promise to ladies is sacred. We were told that ten minutes was as long as we could be allowed this evening, and we have pledged our words. Have we your permission?"

"Certainly, gentlemen."

Sir Francis rose, and there was a general draining of glasses and a stretching of masculine forms. Then we followed him across the hall into the blue drawing-room.

I should have made my way at once to Maud but a look in her eyes checked me, and I turned aside and sat down in an empty recess. I had scarcely commenced to turn over the pages of a book of engravings which I had carelessly taken up, when I heard a voice at my elbow.

"As usual, Mr. Arbuthnot, you make me come to you. It's too bad of you."

I put down the book with a start, and stood up. Lady Olive was at my elbow.

"Now, sit down again, and tell me how the headache is," she exclaimed, sinking herself into the cushioned recess, and drawing her skirts aside to make room for me. "See, I've brought you my favourite smelling-salts, and I have some sal volatile in my pocket. I mustn't doctor you before all these people, though! And now for the question I'm dying to ask. Shall you be able to waltz?"

"Come and see," I said, rising and offering her my arm, for an exodus was already taking place from the room. "It's awfully good of you, Lady Olive, to remember my headache," I added, gratefully.

She tapped my fingers with her fan.

"Don't make speeches, sir. What a grand old place this is, isn't it?"

We were to dance in the armour gallery, and the whole party were making their way there now. The magnificent staircase, bordered with massive black oak balustrades, up which we were passing, descended into the middle of the hall, and was supported by solid black marble pillars; and the corridor, which ran at right angles to it, was lighted by stained-glass windows, in front of each of which armoured knights were grimly keeping watch. One corridor led into another, all of noble dimensions, with high oriel windows, and lined by a silent ghostly guard of steel-clad warriors and polished marble statues. A strange contrast they seemed to the gay laughing procession of girls, in their low-necked dinner dresses and flashing diamonds, and men in their mess jackets and evening coats. Maud alone, moving with the slow, stately grace of a princess of former days, seemed in keeping with our surroundings.

Soon the sound of violins reached us, and, pushing aside the heavy curtains, we descended two steps and stood in the armour gallery. Maud's imagination and many nimble fingers had been busy here, and at first I scarcely knew the place. Fairy lights with various coloured shades hung from the mailed gloves of many generations of Devereux, and the black oak floor was shining with a polish beyond its own. But no fairy lights or bracketed candles could dispel the gloom which hung about the long lofty gallery, with its vaulted roof black with age, and its panelled walls hung with the martial trophies of every age and every land. And yet it was a gloom which seemed in keeping with the place, and no one found it oppressive.

I danced with Lady Olive, and then, as we stood talking in the shade of one of my armoured forefathers, Captain Hasleton came up and claimed her, and I was left alone. Nearly opposite me was Maud, standing like an exquisite picture in the softened light of one of the stained-glass windows. But I did not go to her at once. Several men were talking to her, and she was answering them with the languid air of one who finds it hard to be amused, and her blue eyes more than once travelled past them and looked into mine indifferently, but still with a meaning in them. At last I crossed the room and stood before her.

"You promised me a waltz, I think, Miss Devereux. Will not this one do?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then she laid her hand on my coat-sleeve, and we moved away. Without a word I passed my arm around her waist, and we floated slowly up the room. It was one of Waldteufel's wild, sad waltzes, now bursting into a loud flood of music, now dying away into a few faint melodious chords. For many years afterwards I never heard it played without longing to rush away into solitude and recall those few minutes of exquisite happiness in that strange, dimly-lit ball-room.

All things come to an end, and so did that waltz. Maud promised me the next but one, and was led away by Lord Annerley, and, to while away the time, I took a lamp from a bracket on the wall, and, pushing aside the heavy curtains, stepped into the picture gallery to look at my father's portrait.

It was not the first time by many that I had done so, for when I had been shown over the court soon after my arrival my first visit had been here. Bitterly indignant had I felt when, after I had looked for long in vain for my father's picture, I had found it—with its face turned against the wall. I had turned it round again during a moment or two when Groves, the portly house-steward, had been otherwise engaged, and since then it had not been disturbed, for Sir Francis no longer made this his favourite lounging-place; indeed, he seldom came here at all.

The sound of the music and of voices—some fresh ones I fancied—came to me in a faint, indistinct hum through the drawn curtains, and for a while I forgot all about them. I seemed in another world, amongst these long rows of my frowning ancestors, beruffed ladies in quilted gowns and dresses of strange device, armed knights, and beaux of a later and more peaceful age with perukes, knee-breeches, and snuff-boxes. But though I walked the whole length of the gallery, and glanced leisurely at all of them, it was my father's picture at which I lingered longest, and before which I was standing absorbed when the drawing of the curtain and the sound of voices and feet entering the gallery made me start round and very nearly drop the candle which I held in my hand.

"Why, Arbuthnot, what are you doing moping in here?" exclaimed Sir Francis, in a tone of astonishment. "Why don't you go and dance?"

I turned round with some excuse on my lips, but it died away when I saw who were his companions. Walking by his side was a tall dark man, with iron-grey hair, and pale, delicate face. On his arm was Maud, and, glancing from one to another, I knew that this was her father, my Uncle Rupert. Behind was my cousin Francis, with Lady Olive on his arm. It was a strange meeting.

"This is Mr. Arbuthnot, Rupert, whom I was telling you about just now," Sir Francis went on, without appearing to notice my start, "Arbuthnot, this is my son, Mr. Rupert Devereux."

I bowed slightly, and my Uncle Rupert did the same, withdrawing the hand which I had affected not to see. God forbid that my hand should touch his, even in the most casual fashion.

"Well, Arbuthnot, we——"

Sir Francis broke off in his pleasant speech, with his eyes riveted on the wall behind me. Slowly his face grew rigid with anger, and his thick eyebrows were contracted in a stern frown.

"Who has touched that picture?" he asked, in a cold, measured tone, which I had never heard from him before.

Rupert Devereux's eyes followed his father's shaking forefinger, and I saw a change pass over his face also. His dark eyes filled with a troubled, fearful light, and he shrank back a pace, as though to escape from the sight of the handsome boyish face which laughed down on him from the massive frame. To my eyes, inspired by knowledge, guilt was written in his pale face as plainly as nature could write, and a passionate anger which had lain sleeping within me for many weary months leapt out, burning and fierce, kindled by his presence. I forgot that I was Mr. Arbuthnot, the land agent; I forgot Maud's presence; I forgot everything save that I stood face to face with the man who had blighted my father's name and honour. That one maddening thought alone held me, and it was only by a great effort that I restrained myself from flying at his throat like a mad bull-dog.

I don't think that Sir Francis noticed my agitation. In fact, I am sure that he did not; for I was standing just outside the streak of light which the moon, shining softly in through the diamond-paned window, was casting upon the polished floor.

"Mr. Arbuthnot," he said, firmly, "might I trouble you—or Francis, you are nearest! Be so good as to turn that picture with its face to the wall."

Francis Devereux dropped Lady Olive's arm, and advancing, laid his hands upon the frame. Then the devil broke loose within me, and seizing him by the collar as though he had been a baby, I threw him on his back upon the floor.

"Dare to lay a finger upon that picture, you or any one else here," I cried, passionately, "and I will kill you!"