CHAPTER XX

LORD LUMLEY AND MARGHARITA

"Geoffrey, come here for a moment!"

The Earl of St. Maurice, who was a most obedient husband, folded up his paper and joined his wife at the window.

"Well, dear."

"Look there."

He followed her finger. It pointed to three figures; a man in shooting clothes, with a gun under his arm, a girl and a child between them, strolling along the cliffs outside the grounds. He glanced at them carelessly, and back into his wife's face as though for an explanation.

"Well?"

"This is the third morning that Lumley has joined Margharita and Gracie in their walk."

"Very good natured of him," the Earl replied carelessly. "He always was fond of Gracie though, wasn't he?"

"I wish I could feel sure that it was entirely for Gracie's sake," she answered anxiously.

Her husband whistled, and his brows contracted a little.

"You mean to suggest, I suppose, that Miss Briscoe is the attraction," he remarked thoughtfully.

"How can I help thinking so? Both yesterday and this morning he was in the schoolroom until I heard her tell him quite severely that he must go, as he was interrupting their work. Both mornings I have asked him to drive with me, and each time he made an excuse. If Margharita's name is mentioned before him, he is either unusually silent and reserved, or very talkative. As a rule, you know, Lumley does not care for girls. That makes me all the more anxious."

"Miss Briscoe is certainly wonderfully beautiful," he said. "Yet I think that Lumley has common sense."

"He has peculiar ideas," his wife answered. "I have always been afraid of his doing something bizarre, and as you say, Margharita is wonderfully beautiful—far more so than her mother, I think. What would you advise me to do, Geoffrey?"

He stroked his long gray mustache, and looked thoughtful.

"It's a delicate matter," he said. "To even hint at the girl going away because Lumley admires her would be unjust, and, at the same time, if Lumley got an inkling of the reason it would certainly make him think more of her than he does now. You have no fault to find with her in any way?"

"None! absolutely none! Her behavior is perfect. She is proud, but I do not consider that a fault. Her manners are the manners of a perfectly-bred lady."

"And Gracie likes her?"

"Gracie adores her!"

"She certainly doesn't attempt to encourage Lumley in any way," the Earl continued thoughtfully.

"Her manners and behavior, in fact, her whole conduct, is perfectly irreproachable," Lady St. Maurice acknowledged. "In certain ways she has been a great disappointment to me, but I wish to be just to her, and I feel bound to say so. It makes the situation all the more difficult."

"In that case we can do nothing," her husband said decidedly. "Things must take their course. If they develop, as we will hope they may not, I will speak to Lumley privately."

"You see she is coming back because Lumley has joined them," Lady St. Maurice said. "Geoffrey, look at her now at the top of that hill. Does she not remind you of him?"

He took up a pair of field glasses from the table and looked at her steadily.

"Yes, she does," he admitted. "She is just like that poor fellow Marioni sometimes. I never noticed it so clearly."

"She is horribly like him, and, Geoffrey, it is foolish of me, but sometimes she looks at me with his eyes. It makes me shiver."

"Foolish little woman! Why, you are actually nursing your fears."

"They are scarcely fears; only a stupid sort of foreboding that comes on sometimes, and which, afterward, I look upon as morbid. It is foolish of me, I know, to connect them with Margharita, and yet I can't help it sometimes. She is so like him."

"Why don't you ask her if she knows anything about him, or where he is? Surely you might do that."

"I have made up my mind to more than once, but really, Geoffrey, absurd though it may sound, I have never felt quite at ease in asking Margharita personal questions. She so obviously insists upon our relations remaining exactly those of employer and employed. It was not at all what I intended; but what can I do? I wish to be a friend to her, but her manner quite forbids it. She is far prouder than I am."

Lord St. Maurice shrugged his shoulders and kissed his wife's forehead.

"I shouldn't trouble about it, dear. They are a headstrong, intractable race, those Marionis, and this girl takes after her mother. Treat her kindly and she'll come round some day. Come and sit in the library if you have nothing better to do for half an hour. I have some stupid letters to write."

"I will come in one moment, Geoffrey," she answered. "I may as well clear off some of my correspondence debts. There are some invitations to answer, too."

Lord St. Maurice left the room and Adrienne remained by the window, her eyes fixed upon the little group which had come to a standstill now on the summit of the low line of cliffs. The field glasses were still on the table by her side, and raising them to her eyes, she watched them steadfastly for several minutes. When she put them down she was a shade paler, and there were tears in her eyes.

"If I thought that it would wipe out the past," she murmured, "after all it might be well. But how can it? He will never forgive! Never! never!"

She turned away, brushing the tears from her eyes, and went into her husband's room smiling and comely. Such sorrows as she had were not for him to share—not even for him to know of. The burden of them was for her alone.

And, meanwhile, Lord Lumley, her only son, was leaning against the trunk of a pine tree on the brow of the cliff, with something very much like a frown upon his forehead; and a little distance away, Margharita was calmly reading to Gracie out of a French picture book, brought, as Lord Lumley had been quick to surmise, chiefly with a view of excluding him from their company. It was quite true, as his father had remarked, that he had received very little encouragement from Margharita; in fact, he had been told somewhat plainly, a few minutes ago, that his presence was interfering with the lesson. "As if there was any necessity to bring lesson books out of doors," he had muttered sotto voce, withdrawing himself a few yards, however, and relapsing into an irritated silence. The book had been brought on his account altogether. There was no doubt whatever about that, and, manlike, he felt aggrieved. Of course he ought to have gone away at once, and he had started with that intention, but the sound of Margharita's voice arrested him before he had gone half a dozen yards. After all, it would be pleasanter to stay and listen.

So he stood there, crumpling up a sprig of heather in his hand, and ostensibly waiting for a shot at a sea gull. He was quite aware that no sea gull was likely to rise anywhere near, and that his gun was unloaded, but the excuse was the only one that had occurred to him at a minute's notice. His real object in remaining was that he might walk home with Margharita when the lesson was over.

The Earl of St. Maurice had been a handsome man in his youth, but his son was handsomer. To the fine Saxon physique of the St. Maurices, in Lord Lumley had been added something of the more delicate beauty of his mother. He had the long limbs and broad shoulders of which a gallery full of St. Maurices boasted, but his features were more delicately formed, and his forehead was higher and more intellectual than any of them.

Yet it had not in any way spoiled him. He had not an atom of conceit or pride of any sort. At college, where he had graduated early, he presented the rare combination of a nobleman's son, a moderate athlete, and a hard reading man. His had been the intellectual set of the whole university, and having the rare gift of attaining an unsought influence over most of those with whom he was brought into contact, he had imparted a distinctly scholarly tone to the little circle which he had formed. Men of all grades spoke well of him. He was reserved, and he was not a prig; he was consistent to his own ideals, and yet not censorious. He was possessed of an agreeable and even winning manner, and yet he had rather avoided the society of women than otherwise. The consequence was that, at twenty-four, he had the thoughtful intellectual air of a much older man.

The lesson came to an end at last, and the three strolled down toward the house together. Lord Lumley had joined them because there was something which he was determined to say.

"Miss Briscoe," he began, during a momentary halt while they watched a yacht tacking in the bay below, "may I ask you a question?"

"I suppose so," she answered carelessly, without looking at him.

"You are beginning to avoid me."

"Indeed!"

"You brought that wretched book out this morning as an excuse to get rid of me."

"Well, if I did, you should certainly relieve me of the necessity, should you not?"

"You know that you did. And, yesterday morning, if Gracie had not pleaded to stay out a little longer, you would have cut your work short because of my presence."

"Then, if you think so, Lord Lumley, it is clearly your duty to go away, as I reminded you just now."

"Thanks. I wonder why the path of duty is always so disagreeable."

She did not answer him; but, taking Gracie by the hand, turned homeward. He kept his place by her side, heedless of the angry glance which she flashed upon him.

"I want to know why you object to my society so much, Miss Briscoe?" he said presently.

"There are a great many things we want to know in this world which we don't know," she answered. "Where we go to after we die, for instance. We have to be patient, and wait till we find out."

"Then you won't tell me?"

"Why should I? But if you really want to know, the reason is simple enough. I have been used to solitude. I prefer it. If I cannot have it absolutely I can have it comparatively, at any rate."

"With Gracie?"

"Exactly."

"You are complimentary," he laughed.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Why should I not tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by telling a falsehood?"

He looked at her gravely.

"That sounds cynical, Miss Briscoe."

"I am indifferent as to its sound," she answered. "Hadn't you better go and shoot something?"

He did not notice her suggestion.

"Miss Briscoe, I do not like the way in which we are talking. I——"

"The remedy is obvious," she interrupted haughtily.

"Probably the fault is mine," he continued, calmly ignoring her speech. "I have not been used to talking to girls much. My friends have all been men, and I daresay that I have got into the habit, therefore, of expressing myself clumsily. But what I want to say to you, if you will give me the opportunity, is this: The first few evenings after your arrival here were very pleasant ones indeed—for me. You talked to me, and I found more pleasure in our conversation than I have ever done in anything else in my life. There, that is being frank, is it not? I hoped that we might be friends; indeed, it seemed to me that we were certainly going to be so. I do not wish to offend you by any apparent exaggeration, but I must say that it made a considerable difference to my interest in life. That is putting it mildly. Where you have found the time to read and think so much, of course, I cannot tell. It is not my business. Only, I know that it makes your companionship very pleasant for me. You see I am trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible—do please give me credit for that. I just want to know why you have altered your manner to me; why we cannot be friends? Will you tell me, please, Miss Briscoe?"

His pleading tone had a manly musical ring in it which was very pleasant to listen to, and in his anxiety for her answer he had stooped down until his dark handsome head nearly touched hers. She drew away impatiently.

"That is impossible," she said coldly.

"And why?"

"If for no other reason, surely the Countess of St. Maurice's governess is no suitable friend for Lord Lumley."

He colored under the intense hauteur of her words.

"You will forgive my saying that that is the first remark which I have heard from you, Miss Briscoe, which has not been in good taste. Good-morning. Good-bye, Gracie."

He turned abruptly along a private path through the pine wood. Margharita and her charge went on up to the house alone.