Chapter 66
Under a vigorous young oak-tree thickly festooned with lanterns Austin found an unoccupied table. There was a great deal of racket and laughter from the groups surrounding them, but this seemed to be the only available spot; besides, Austin was hungry, and he said so.
Nina, with Selwyn on her left, looked around for Gerald and Lansing.
When the latter came sauntering up, Austin questioned him, but he replied carelessly that Gerald had gone to join some people whom he, Lansing, did not know very well.
"Why, there he is now!" exclaimed Eileen, catching sight of her brother seated among a very noisy group on the outer edge of the illuminated zone. "Who are those people, Nina? Oh! Rosamund Fane is there, too; and--and--"
She ceased speaking so abruptly that Selwyn turned around; and Nina bit her lip in vexation and glanced at her husband. For, among the overanimated and almost boisterous group which was attracting the attention of everybody in the vicinity sat Mrs. Jack Ruthven. And Selwyn saw her.
For a moment he looked at her--looked at Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side, and Rosamund opposite; and at the others, whom he had never before seen. Then quietly, but with heightened colour, he turned his attention to the gla.s.s which the servant had just filled for him, and, resting his hand on the stem, stared at the bubbles crowding upward through it to the foamy brim.
Nina and Boots had begun, ostentatiously, an exceedingly animated conversation; and they became almost aggressive, appealing to Austin, who sat back with a frown on his heavy face--and to Eileen, who was sipping her mineral water and staring thoughtfully at a big, round, orange-tinted lantern which hung like the harvest moon behind Gerald, throwing his curly head into silhouette.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side."]
What conversation there was to carry, Boots and Nina carried. Austin silently satisfied his hunger, eating and drinking with a sullen determination to make no pretence of ignoring a situation that plainly angered him deeply. And from minute to minute he raised his head to glare across at Gerald, who evidently was unconscious of the presence of his own party.
When Nina spoke to Eileen, the girl answered briefly but with perfect composure. Selwyn, too, added a quiet word at intervals, speaking in a voice that sounded a little tired and strained.
It was that note of fatigue in his voice which aroused Eileen to effort--the instinctive move to protect--to sustain him. Conscious of Austin's suppressed but increasing anger at her brother, amazed and distressed at what Gerald had done--for the boy's very presence there was an affront to them all--she was still more sensitive to Selwyn's voice; and in her heart she responded pa.s.sionately.
Nina looked up, surprised at the sudden transformation in the girl, who had turned on Boots with a sudden flow of spirits and the gayest of challenges; and their laughter and badinage became so genuine and so persistent that, combining with Nina, they fairly swept Austin from his surly abstraction into their toils; and Selwyn's subdued laugh, if forced, sounded pleasantly, now, and his drawn face seemed
Once she turned, under cover of the general conversation which she had set going, and looked straight into Selwyn's eyes, flas.h.i.+ng to him a message of purest loyalty; and his silent gaze in response sent the colour flying to her cheeks.
It was all very well for a while--a brave, sweet effort; but ears could not remain deaf to the increasing noise and laughter--to familiar voices, half-caught phrases, indiscreet even in the fragments understood. Besides, Gerald had seen them, and the boy's face had become almost ghastly.
Alixe, unusually flushed, was conducting herself without restraint; Neergard's snickering laugh grew more significant and persistent; even Rosamund spoke too loudly at moments; and once she looked around at Nina and Selwyn while her pretty, accentless laughter, rippling with its undertone of malice, became more frequent in the increasing tumult.
There was no use in making a pretence of further gaiety. Austin had begun to scowl again; Nina, with one shocked glance at Alixe, leaned over toward her brother:
"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to make such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't anybody send her home?"
Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is to get out.... Nina--if you are ready--"
"But--but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning piteously to Selwyn. "We can't leave him--there!"
The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward her:
"Do you wish me to get him?"
"Y-you can't do that--can you?"
"Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in the world I can't do, if you wish it?"
As he rose she laid her hand on his arm:
"I--I don't ask it--" she began.
"You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost genuine.
"Austin, I'm going to get Gerald--and Nina will explain to you that he's to be left to me if any sermon is required. I'll go back with him in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll drive home in my place."
As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it."
He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand."
"Yes--I do! Don't go. Philip--don't go near--her--"
"I must."
"If you do--if you go--h-how can you c-care for me as you say you do?--when I ask you not to--when I cannot endure--to--"
She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, unsteady in the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half rose in her seat and stared back.
Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: "She--she is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led her from the table, following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and she clung to him almost convulsively when he halted on the edge of the lawn.
"I must go back," he whispered--"dearest--dearest--I must."
"T-to Gerald? Or--_her_?"
But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let me go, Eileen"--gently detaching her fingers, which left her hands lying in both of his.
She said, looking up at him: "If you go--if you go--whatever time you return--no matter what hour--knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall be awake. Do you promise?"
"Yes," he said with a trace of impatience--the only hint of his anger at the prospect of the duty before him.
So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn turned back, sauntering quietly toward the table where already the occupants had apparently forgotten him and the episode in the riotous gaiety increasing with the accession of half a dozen more men.
When Selwyn approached, Neergard saw him first, stared at him, and snickered; but he greeted everybody with smiling composure, nodding to those he knew--a trifle more formally to Mrs. Ruthven--and, coolly pulling up a chair, seated himself beside Gerald.
"Boots has driven home with the others," he said in a low voice; "I'm going back in the motor-boat with you. Don't worry about Austin. Are you ready?"
The boy had evidently let the wine alone, or else fright had sobered him, for he looked terribly white and tired: "Yes," he said, "I'll go when you wish. I suppose they'll never forgive me for this. Come on."
"One moment, then," nodded Selwyn; "I want to speak to Mrs. Ruthven."
And, quietly turning to Alixe, and dropping his voice to a tone too low for Neergard to hear--for he was plainly attempting to listen:
"You are making a mistake; do you understand? Whoever is your hostess--wherever you are staying--find her and go there before it is too late."
She inclined her pretty head thoughtfully, eyes on the wine-gla.s.s which she was turning round and round between her slender fingers. "What do you mean by 'too late'?" she asked. "Don't you know that everything is too late for me now?"
"What do _you_ mean, Alixe?" he returned, watching her intently.
"What I say. I have not seen Jack Ruthven for two months. Do you know what that means? I have not heard from him for two months. Do you know what _that_ means? No? Well, I'll tell you, Philip; it means that when I do hear from him it will be through his attorneys."
He turned slightly paler: "Why"?"
"Divorce," she said with a reckless little laugh--"and the end of things for me."
"On what grounds?" he demanded doggedly. "Does he threaten you?"