The guests were all interesting, and
the room sufficiently large not to be overcrowded.
Franks seemed to watch Florence, guarding her against
too much intrusion, but at the same time he himself
kept her amused. He told her who the people were.
As he did so, he watched her face. She still
wore that becoming colour, and her eyes were still
bright. She had lost that heavy apathetic air
which had angered Franks more than once. He noticed,
however, that she watched the door, and as fresh arrivals
were announced her eyes brightened for an instant,
and then grew perceptibly dull. He knew she was
watching for Trevor, and he cursed Trevor in his heart.
“She is in love with him.
What fools women are!” muttered Franks to himself.
“If she married a man like that a
rich man with all that money could give her
literary career would be ended. I have had the
pleasure of introducing her to the public; she is
my treasure-trove, my one bright particular star.
She shall not shine for anyone else. That great
gift of hers shall be improved, shall be strengthened,
shall be multiplied ten-thousandfold. I will
not give her up. I love her just because she
is clever: because she is a genius. If she
had not that divine fire, she would be as nothing
and worse than nothing to me. As it is, the world
shall talk of her yet.”
Presently Trevor and his mother arrived,
and it seemed to Florence that some kind of wave of
sympathy immediately caused his eyes to light upon
her in her distant corner. He said a few words
to his hostess, watched his mother as she greeted
a chance acquaintance, and elbowed his way to her
side.
“This is good luck,” he
said; “I did not expect to see you here to-night.”
He sat down by her, and Franks was forced to seek
entertainment elsewhere.
Florence expected that after the way
she had treated Trevor early that day he would be
cold and distant; but this was not the case. He
seemed to have read her agitation for what it was
worth. Something in her eyes must have given
him a hint of the truth. He certainly was not
angry now. He was sympathetic, and the girl thought,
with a great wave of comfort: “He does
not like me because I am supposed to be clever.
He likes me for quite another reason: just for
myself. But why did not he tell me so before before
I fell a second time? It is all hopeless now,
of course; and yet is it hopeless? Perhaps Maurice
Trevor is the kind of man who would forgive.
I wonder!”
She looked up at him as the thought
came to her, and his eyes met hers.
“What are you thinking about?”
he said. They had been talking a lot of commonplaces;
now his voice dropped; if he could, he would have taken
her hand. They were as much alone in that crowd
as though they had been the only people in the room.
“What are you thinking of?” he repeated.
“Of you,” said Florence.
“Perhaps you are sorry for some of the things
you said this morning?”
“I am sorry,” she answered gravely, “that
I was obliged to say them.”
“But why were you obliged?”
“I have a secret; it was because of that secret
I was obliged.”
“You will tell it to me, won’t you?”
“I cannot.”
Trevor turned aside. He did not speak at all
for a moment.
“I must understand you somehow,”
he said then; “you are surrounded by mystery,
you puzzle me, you pique my curiosity. I am not
curious about small things as a rule, but this is
not a small thing, and I have a great curiosity as
to the state of your heart, as to the state of your ”
“My morals,” said Florence
slowly; “of my moral nature you are
not sure of me, are you?”
“I am sure that, bad or good and
I know you are not bad you are the only
woman that I care for. May I come and see you
to-morrow?”
“Don’t talk any more now; you upset me,”
said Florence.
“May I come and see you to-morrow?”
“Yes.”
“Remember, if I come, I shall expect you to
tell me everything?”
“Yes.”
“You will?”
“I am not certain; I can let you know when you
do come.”
“Thank you; you have lifted a great weight from
my heart.”
A moment later Franks appeared with
a very learned lady, a Miss Melchister, who asked
to be introduced to Florence.
“I have a crow to pluck with you, Miss Aylmer,”
she said.
“What is that?” asked Florence.
“How dare you give yourself
and your sisters away? Do you know that you were
very cruel when you wrote that extremely clever paper
in the General Review?”
“I don’t see it,”
replied Florence. Her answers were lame.
Miss Melchister prepared herself for the fray.
“We will discuss the point,” she said.
“Now, why did you say ”
Trevor lingered near for a minute.
He observed that Florence’s cheeks had turned
pale, and he thought that for such a clever girl she
spoke in a rather ignorant way.
“How queer she is!” he
said to himself; “but never mind, she will tell
me all to-morrow. I shall win her; it will be
my delight to guard her, to help her, and if necessary
to save her. She is under someone’s thumb;
but I will find out whose.”
His thoughts travelled to Bertha Keys.
He remembered that strange time when he met Florence
at the railway station at Hamslade. Why had she
spent the day there? Why had Bertha sent her a
parcel? He felt disturbed, and he wandered into
another room. This was the library of the house.
Some papers were lying about. Amongst others was
the first number of the General Review.
With a start Trevor took it up. He would look
through Florence’s article. That clever
paper had been largely criticised already; but, strange
to say, he had not read it. He sank into a chair
and read it slowly over. As he did so, his heart
beat at first loud, then with heavy throbs. A
look of pain, perplexity, and weariness came into
his eyes. One sentence in particular he read not
only once, but twice, three times. It was a strange
sentence; it contained in it the germ of a very poisonous
thought. In these few words was the possibility
of a faith being undermined, and a hope being destroyed.
It puzzled him. He had the queer feeling that
he had read it before. He repeated it to himself
until he knew it by heart. Then he put the paper
down, and soon afterwards he went to his mother, and
told her he was going home.
“I will send a brougham for
you; I am not very well,” he said.
She looked into his face, and was
distressed at the expression she saw in his eyes.
“All right, Maurice dear; I
shall be ready in an hour. I just want to meet
a certain old friend, and to talk to that pretty girl
Miss Aylmer. I will find out why she does not
come to see us.”
“Don’t worry her.
I would rather you didn’t,” said Trevor.
His mother looked at him again, and her heart sank.
“Is it possible he has proposed
for her, and she will not accept him?” thought
the mother; and then she drew her proud little head
up, and a feeling of indignation filled her heart.
If Florence was going to treat her boy, the very light
of her eyes, cruelly, she certainly need expect no
mercy from his mother.