Eugene Lane had been rather puzzled
by Claudia’s latest proceedings. On the
morrow of her interview with Stafford he had received
from her an incoherent note, in which she took great
blame to herself for “this unhappy occurrence,”
and intimated that it would be long before she could
bear to discuss any question pending between herself
and her correspondent. Eugene was not disposed
to acquiesce in this decision. He had done as
much as honor and friendship demanded, and saw no reason
why his own happiness should be longer delayed; for
he had little doubt that Stafford’s rebuff meant
his own success. He could not, however, persist
in seeking Claudia after her declaration of unwillingness
to be sought; and he departed from Territon Park in
some degree of dudgeon. All this sort of thing
seemed to him to have a touch of the theater about
it. But Claudia took it seriously; she did not
forbid him to write to her, but she answered none
of his letters, and Lord Rickmansworth, whom he encountered
at one of the October race-meetings, gave him to understand
that she was living a life of seclusion at Territon
Park. Rickmansworth openly scoffed at this behavior,
and Eugene did not know whether to be pleased at finding
his views agreed with, or angry at hearing his mistress’s
whims treated with fraternal disrespect. Ultimately,
he found himself, under the influence of lunch, coinciding
with Rickmansworth’s dictum that girls rather
liked making fools of themselves, and that Claudia
was no better than the rest. It was one of Eugene’s
misfortunes that he could not cherish illusions about
his friends, unless his feeling toward Stafford must
be ranked as an illusion. About the latter he
had heard nothing, except for a short note from Sir
Roderick, telling him that no tragedy of a violent
character need now be feared. He was anxious
to see Ayre and learn what passed, but that gentleman
had also vanished to recruit at a German bath after
his arduous labors.
It was mid-November before any progress
was made in the matter. Eugene was in London,
and so were very many people, for Parliament met in
the autumn that year, and the season before Christmas
was more active than usual. He had met Haddington
about the House, and congratulated him with a fervor
and sincerity that had made the recipient of his blessings
positively uneasy. Why should Lane be so uncommonly
glad to get rid of Kate? thought the happy man who
had won her from him. It really looked as if
there were something more than met the eye. Eugene
detected this idea in Haddington’s mind, and
it caused him keen amusement. Kate also he had
encountered, and their meeting had been marked by the
ceremonious friendship demanded by the circumstances.
The flavor of diplomacy imparted to private life by
these episodes had not, however, been strong enough
to prevent Eugene being very bored. He was growing
from day to day less patient of Claudia’s invisibility,
and he expressed his feeling very plainly one day
to Rickmansworth, whom he happened to encounter in
the outer lobby, as the noble lord was finding his
way to the unwonted haunt of the House of Lords, thereto
attracted by a debate on the proper precautions it
behooved the nation to take against pleuro-pneumonia.
“Surprising,” he said,
“what interesting subjects the old buffers get
hold of now and then! Come and hear ’em,
old man.”
“The Lord forbid!” said
Eugene. “But I want to say a word to you,
Rick, about Claudia. I can’t stand this
much longer.”
“I wouldn’t,” said
Rickmansworth, “if I were you; but it isn’t
my fault.”
“It’s absurd treating
me like this because of Stafford’s affair.”
“Well, why don’t you go
and call in Grosvenor Square? She’s there
with Aunt Julia.”
“I will. Do you think she’ll see
me?”
“My dear fellow, I don’t
know; only if I wanted to see a girl, I bet she’d
see me.”
Eugene smiled at his friend’s
indomitable self-confidence, and let him fly to the
arms of pleuro-pneumonia. He then dispensed with
his own presence in his branch of the Legislature,
and took his way toward Grosvenor Square, where Lord
Rickmansworth’s town house was.
Lady Claudia was not at home.
She had gone with her aunt earlier in the day to give
Mr. Morewood a sitting. Mr. Morewood was painting
her portrait.
“I expect they’ve stayed
to tea. I haven’t seen old Morewood for
no end of a time. Gad! I’ll go to
tea.”
And he got into a hansom and went,
wondering with some amusement how Claudia had persuaded
Morewood to paint her. It turned out, however,
that the transaction was of a purely commercial character.
Rickmansworth, having been very successful at the race-meeting
above referred to, had been minded to give his sister
a present, and she had chosen her own head on a canvas.
The price offered was such that Morewood could not
refuse; but he had in the course of the sitting greatly
annoyed Claudia by mentioning incidentally that her
face did not interest him and was, in fact, such a
face as he would never have painted but for the pressure
of penury.
“Why doesn’t it interest
you?” asked she, in pardonable irritation.
“I don’t know. It’s but
I dare say it’s my fault,” he replied,
in that tone which clearly implies the opposite of
what is asserted.
“It must be, I think,”
said Claudia gently. “You see, it interests
so many people, Mr. Morewood.”
“Not artists.”
“Dear me! no!”
“Whom, then?”
“Oh, the nobility and gentry.”
“And clergy?”
A shadow passed across her face but a fleeting
shadow.
“You paint very slowly,” she said.
“I do when I am not inspired. I hate painting
young women.”
“Oh! Why?”
“They’re not meant to be painted; they’re
meant to be kissed.”
“Does the one exclude the other?”
“That’s for you to say,” said Morewood,
with a grin.
“I think they’re meant
to be painted by some people, and kissed by other
people. Let the cobbler stick to his last, Mr.
Morewood.”
“I wonder if you’ll stick to your last,”
said Morewood.
Claudia decided that she had better
not see this joke, if the contemptible quip could
be so called. It was very impertinent, and she
had no retort ready. She revenged herself by declaring
her sitting at an end, and inviting herself and her
aunt to stay to tea.
“I’ve got no end of work to do,”
Morewood protested.
“Surely tea is compris?”
she asked, with raised eyebrows. “We shan’t
stay more than an hour.”
Morewood groaned, but ordered tea.
After all, it was too dark to paint, and well,
she was amusing.
Eugene arrived almost at the same
moment as tea. Morewood was glad to see him,
and went as near showing it as he ever did. Lady
Julia received him with effusion, Claudia with dignity.
“I have pursued you from Grosvenor
Square, Lady Julia,” he said. “I
didn’t come to see old Morewood, you know.”
“As much as to see me, I dare
say,” said Lady Julia in an aside.
Eugene protested with a shake of the
head, and Morewood carried him off to have such inspection
of the picture as artificial light could afford.
“You’ve got her very well.”
“Yes, pretty well. It’s a bright
little shallow face.”
“Go to the devil!” said Eugene, in strong
indignation.
“I only said that to draw you.
There is something in the girl but not
overmuch, you know.”
“There’s all I want.”
“Oh, I should think so! Heard anything
of Stafford?”
“No, except that he’s
gone off somewhere alone again. He wrote to Ayre;
Ayre told me. He and Ayre are very thick now.”
“A queer combination.”
“Yes. I wonder what they’ll make
of one another!”
Morewood was a good-natured man at
bottom, and after a few minutes’ more talk he
carried off Aunt Julia to look at his etchings.
“So I have run you down at last?” said
Eugene to Claudia.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you.”
“I know. But that was a month ago.”
“I was very much upset.”
“So was I, awfully!”
“Do you think it was my fault, Mr. Lane?”
“Not a bit. So far as it was anybody’s
fault, it was mine.”
“How yours?”
“Well, you see, he thought ”
“Yes, I see. You needn’t
go on. He thought you were out of the question,
and therefore ”
“Now, Lady Claudia, are you going to quarrel
again?”
“No, I don’t think so.
Only you are so annoying. Is he in great trouble?”
“He was. I think he’s
better now. But it was a terrible blow to him,
as it would be to any one.”
“To you?”
“It would be death!”
“Nonsense!” said Claudia. “What
is he going to do?”
“I don’t know. I think he will go
back to work.”
“I never intended any harm.”
“You never do.”
“You mean I do it? Pray
don’t try to be desperate and romantic, Mr.
Lane. It’s not in your line.”
“It’s curious I can never
get credit for deep feeling. I have spent a miserable
month.”
“So have I.”
“Because I could not see the person I love best
in the world.”
“Ah! that wasn’t my reason.”
“Claudia, you must give me an answer.”
Claudia rose, and joined her aunt
and Morewood. She gave Eugene no further opportunity
for private conversation, and soon after the ladies
took their leave. As Eugene shook hands with Claudia,
he said:
“May I call to-morrow?”
“You are a little unkind; but
you may.” And she rapidly passed on to
Morewood, and with much sparring made an appointment
for her next sitting.
“Why does she fence so with
me?” he asked the painter, as he took his hat.
“What’s the harm? You know you enjoy
it.”
“I don’t.”
But it is very possible he did.
The next day Eugene took advantage
of Claudia’s permission. He went to Grosvenor
Square, and asked boldly for Lady Claudia. He
was shown into the drawing-room. After a time
Claudia came to him.
“I have come for my answer,” he said,
taking her hand.
Claudia was looking grave.
“You know the answer,” she said.
“It must be ‘Yes.’”
Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.
“But you say ‘Yes’ as if it gave
you pain.”
“So it does, in a way.”
“You don’t like being conquered even by
your own prisoner?”
“It’s not that; that is,
I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling. At any
rate, I don’t feel it.”
“What is it, then? You don’t care
enough for me?”
“Ah, I care too much!”
she cried. “Eugene, I wish I could have
loved Father Stafford, and not you.”
“Why so?”
“I was at the very center of
his life. I don’t think I am more than on
the fringe of yours.”
“A very priceless fringe to
a very worthless fabric!” said he, kissing her
hand.
“Yes,” she answered, with
a smile, “you are perfect in that. You might
give lessons in amatory deportment.”
“Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh.”
“Ah! does it? May not a
lover be too point-de-vice in his speeches as
well as in his accouterments? Father Stafford
came to me pale, yes, trembling, and with rugged words.”
“I am not the man that Stafford
is save for my lady’s favor.”
“And you came in confidence?”
“You had let me hope.”
“You have known it for a long
while. I don’t trust you, you know, but
I must. Will you treat me as you treated Kate?”
“Slander!” cried he gayly. “I
didn’t ‘treat’ Kate. Kate ‘treated’
me.”
“Poor fellow!”
He had sat down in a low chair close
to hers, and she bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
“At least, I don’t think
you’ll like any one better than you like me,
and I must be content with that.”
“I have worshiped you for years.
Was ever beauty so exacting?”
“With lucid intervals?”
“Never a moment. A sense
of duty once led me astray dynastic considerations a
suitable cousin.”
“Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night.”
“Pereant quae ante te! You know a little
Latin?”
“I think I’d better not just now.”
“You may want it for yourself,
you know, with a change of gender. But we’ll
not bandy recriminations.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
“Not when you began; but with
me all your troubles shall end in jokes, and every
tear in a smile. Claudia, I never knew you so
alarmingly serious before.”
“Well, I won’t be serious any more.
The fatal deed is done!”
“And I may say ‘Claudia’ now without
fear of any one?”
“You will be able to say it
for about the next fifty years. I hope you won’t
get tired of it. Eugene, try to get tired of me
last of all.”
“Never while I live! You are a perpetual
refreshment.”
“A lofty function!”
“And the spring of all my life.
Let us be happy, dear, and never mind fifty years
hence.”
“I will,” she said; “and I am happy.”
“And, please God, you shall
always be so. One would think it was a very dangerous
thing to marry me!”
“I will brave the danger.”
“There is none. I have found my goddess.”
The door opened suddenly, and Bob
Territon entered at the very moment when Eugene was
sealing his vow of homage. Bob was pleased to
be playful. Holding his hands before his face,
he turned and pretended to fly.
“Come in, old man,” cried Eugene, “and
congratulate me!”
“Oh! you have fixed it, have you?”
“We have. Don’t you think we shall
do very well together?”
Bob stood regarding them, his hands in his pockets.
“Yes,” he said at length, “I think
you will. There’s a pair of you.”
And he could never be persuaded to
explain this utterance. But it is to be feared
that the thought underlying it was one not over-complimentary
to the happy lovers. And Bob knew them both very
well.