"But white will get very dirty in London, surely!" Laline objected.
"Not if you have enough white dresses," returned her employer, loftily. "Go to-morrow and buy four, of creamy-white nun's veiling. I will make a sketch to show you how they must be made. Presently you shall have others. I should like to see you in white velvet," she concluded, gazing dreamily at Laline through her jewelled eye-glasses, which she invariably used in preference to her spectacles when not alone or not engaged in writing.
"White velvet would be very expensive, I am afraid," Laline was beginning, when Mrs. Vandeleur cut her short.
"Leave off thinking of money altogether!" she said. "What does money matter? If we can have the necessaries of life—and among them I count beautiful surroundings, which are essential to a woman of my nature—of what use is extra money? Look at my niece Clare. She is forever drawn this way and that by two mastering passions—love of men and their admiration and desire of money. The conflict will spoil her beauty. Already it is so marked in its results that her presence troubles me. The beings by whom in the spirit and the flesh I am surrounded must be without harrowing passions or disturbing longings. Tell me—how does this room affect you? Stand up, look about you, and speak out quite fearlessly."
Laline rose and looked about her. As she did so she became conscious of a singular perfume, faint but penetrating, which filled the air. This arose in part from the many sandal-wood ornaments and receptacles about the room, and also from Mrs. Vandeleur's practice of burning joss-sticks and pastilles.
As Laline afterwards learned, her employer was also much addicted to the use of Eastern perfumes, high in price and difficult to obtain, with which her hair, hands, and clothing were liberally sprinkled. The wood logs, too, seemed to emit a fragrant odour, and the mingled scents gave to the atmosphere a quality peculiar to that room, and with which Laline ever afterwards associated it.
A lamp of ruby glass, suspended by silver chains from the ceiling on the farther side of the tapestry-hangings, supplied light to the farther portion of the room, illuminating feebly the spacious bookcase, the low divans, the corner cupboards, and the tall brazier, which formed its chief furniture. The standing-lamp of Mrs. Vandeleur's writing-table was shaded by amber silk, and, with the two unlit wax-candles in silver stands on her table, gave, but for the dancing firelight, the sole means of illuminating the apartment.
Laline stood for a few seconds gazing about her at the crystal balls, the strange little ebony wands, the framed parchment-scrolls inscribed with cabalistic signs, the heavy volumes in moth-eaten covers, and the many other signs of abstruse and unwholesome studies into the unknown which met her eye. Then she turned slowly, fascinated by the piercing gaze of Mrs. Vandeleur; and, drawing insensibly a little nearer to her, she scanned that lady's face.
"The room is beautiful and interesting," she said, "but it affects me rather unpleasantly. I feel oppressed and stifled, as though a weight had been put upon my heart and I could not breathe. There are so many things about that I do not understand, and some that fascinate but half frighten me. I feel—"
She hesitated, blushed, then stopped outright.
"Go on!" said Mrs. Vandeleur, imperatively.
"Well, it sounds tactless and discourteous, but I feel as if I would rather be on a wide common, with the wind blowing a little rain into my face, than here, and that, if I passed much of my life here, I might grow into an idle, listless dreamer, with all the best side of my nature sent to sleep forever."
"Silly child!" said Mrs. Vandeleur, holding out her little hands and gently drawing the girl down on her knees beside her chair. "But yours is just the temperament I want. My secretary, my companion, who will take down my ideas and clothe them in suitable language, must not be a mere echo of myself. I am at present engaged on two great works. One is to be called Necromancy in the Nineteenth Century, and the other The Occult Vision. With a mind like yours, fresh and untainted by the world, to supplement my own, I can reach higher altitudes of thought. But for this purpose your mind and spirit must be as clear as a rivulet, in which I may read my changing fancies mirrored. While engaged with me on this work, no thoughts of either of those disturbing elements, love or money, must derange your spirit. I can read in your eyes that you are not mercenary; as to love—you have never loved, and yet you are keeping back some secret from the world and from me."
Looking closely into the girl's eyes, Mrs. Vandeleur softly smoothed her forehead with her fingers. Laline was conscious of a sudden and overpowering desire to confide in the weird little lady, which she rightly attributed to the magnetism of the latter's touch and gaze. Disengaging herself by a quick gesture, she rose to her feet, and spoke with ringing earnestness and unexpected decision.
"If I am to help you in your work, Mrs. Vandeleur," she said, "it is of no use to begin by trying to paralyse my will and make it subject to yours. On such terms I could not stay with you. I think your work is very interesting and fascinating, and that you are exceedingly kind. I know quite well that I am very easily influenced on one side of my character; but I have another side, too, or I should not be here now, nor should I have taken my life into my own hands as I did four years ago. As to money, I think as you do. As to love and marriage, they are not for me; they are shut out of my life altogether. I must not think of them either now or at any future time. If I have a secret, it is not one to be ashamed of. Why, then, try to force it from me?"
"I know your secret," said Mrs. Vandeleur, quietly—"you are already married!"
CHAPTER IX.
That night, when Clare Cavan returned at midnight from her reception, she thanked the yawning Susan for sitting up for her, and softly proceeded to the top floor, where were three bedrooms occupied respectively by Mrs. Vandeleur's two servants, and by her niece and her new secretary.
Laline was in bed but not asleep. She lay awake, thinking with interest of her new surroundings. Her work that evening had been writing at the dictation of Mrs. Vandeleur a long treatise concerning second sight. Part of it she had understood, and part had been wholly incomprehensible to her, as she was not yet accustomed to the semi-mystical jargon in which Mrs. Vandeleur clothed her ideas.
Very little more talk of a personal nature had passed between her and her employer. Laline had neither denied nor agreed to the latter's assertion that she was already married, nor had the little lady again alluded to the subject, contenting herself by warning her new secretary against placing any confidence in Clare Cavan, who, she declared, had been born under an opposing star to that of Laline.
It was all very new and fascinating to the imaginative young girl, coming as this experience did after the monotonous drudgery of a suburban day-school, and so much excited had she been by the incidents of the evening that she was fully awake when, at a little after twelve o'clock, a tap at her bedroom door heralded the entrance of Clare Cavan.
Mrs. Vandeleur's niece was shading her eyes with one hand from the light of a candle carried in the other. Her gown of crimson velvet was out very low in the square front, displaying to full advantage the startling whiteness and smooth texture of her skin, and by the candle-light her eyes sparkled like green topazes.
"Do wake up!" she whispered. "I've something most interesting and wonderful to tell you—I'm in love!"
Placing her candle on the dressing-table, she sat in a chair near, and, clasping her hands round her knees, proceeded to purr out her story.
"It was Lady Moreham's reception, as I told you. She goes in for artists and celebrities, and she has an immense belief in Aunt Cissy, and consults her about everything. Artists, you know, always rave about me; they have the bad taste to admire my horrid red hair! But, to explain really what happened last night, I must go back. It's lovely to have at last a girl of my own age to talk to and confide in! You must know that Aunt Cissy gets cards for all private views and that sort of thing; she seldom goes, except to quite the most exclusive; but I use her tickets. I simply adore pictures! Well, about two months ago, I was looking at a lovely fat Paris Bordone lady in an old-master exhibition. I didn't really mean to attract attention to myself, because the lady in the picture had my coloured hair. Do you know Paris Bordone's beauties? They are always fat and white-skinned, in clothes much too tight for them, with red-velvet dresses and pearls in their red hair. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me—a man's voice—say, 'By George, what colouring! The very replica of the picture! She's superb!' Of course, I never thought he could be talking of me; but I turned round and found the man who spoke looking full at me. Such a handsome man! Tall, with a splendid figure, a square jaw, black hair, blue eyes—an Irish combination that I love, though in this case I've learned he gets it from his Highland descent. He stared at me so hard that I could hardly get my eyes away; he was really looking at me so intently that I was quite fascinated. At last I felt I was blushing deeply, and he too flushed. His friend touched his arm, and that seemed to recall him to himself, for he moved away, and I saw him no more that day. It was the strangest thing, for I fell a good deal in love with him on the spot, and somehow felt certain that I should meet him again. So sure I was, that I had my new evening gown, the one I have on now, made just like the Paris Bordone picture simply because I felt convinced that some day he would see me in it. Aunt Cissy would be able to explain the meaning of that sort of feeling. I only know that I felt it."
"And did you never meet him again until to-night?" asked Laline, sitting up in bed, interested, as are all girls, in anything in the nature of a love-story.
"Once only. He was coming out of the South Kensington Museum late on a Saturday afternoon, and I had been shopping in the Brampton Road. He passed quite close to me, and knew me in a moment, as I could see, and I was so disappointed that he did not speak to me."
"How could he," exclaimed Laline, scandalised, "since you are a lady, and, I suppose, he is a gentleman? It would have been an insult which you would have resented."
Clare eyed her curiously under half-lowered white eyelids, and began taking the hairpins out of her hair.
"Of course I should!" she answered, after a slight pause. "But he didn't. Then I went to the South Kensington Museum constantly on nearly all the free days for more than a month, until I knew all the cases near the entrances by heart. But I never met him, and I began really to despair until to-night."
"And were you introduced to him?" asked Laline, much interested. Her notions of what was right and becoming in a young gentlewoman had been considerably startled by Clare's confessions; but she was a sympathetic listener all the same.
"As soon as I walked into the room I saw him," replied Clare, triumphantly. "He was watching me all the while I was shaking hands with Lady Moreham; and only a few moments after I could feel rather than see that he was being brought up to be introduced by Miss Moreham, who was helping her mother to receive. He had asked to be introduced to me, as I knew he would. And fancy! I had supposed all the time that he was only an artist, but I learned that he is in a very good position, and will have heaps of money some day. Isn't that delightful?"
"Why?"
"Why? Because I adore him! His eyes are perfectly lovely—they sparkle like blue stars! And he has a trick of listening very attentively when one is talking, and just drawing his black eyebrows together while he stares hard at one's face, which is irresistible!"
"And is he in love with you?"
"Of course he is! He fell in love with me the first moment he saw me."
"Did he tell you so?"
"Do you think one requires to be told that sort of thing?" inquired Clare, disdainfully. "He looked it—that was enough. Before I left, Miss Moreham contrived to compliment me on my conquest. She told me that he is next of kin to one of the richest men in London."
"And what will your aunt say?"
"Oh, there is nothing that aunt would like better than to see me safely married to somebody with money! That is why she buys me nice clothes, and sends me to 'At homes' and dances and private views. She wants to get me off her hands. In spite of her dreaminess, you'll find later on that there's a lot of the wisdom of the serpent about Aunt Cissy."
"Shall you tell her about this?"
"I shall have to, for he's going to call either to-day or the next day. He has heard a great deal about aunt, he said, and is very anxious to know her, as he is awfully interested in all about palmistry and divination and that sort of thing. It is my belief that he's going to consult her as to our future lives. Oh, I shall never sleep to-night! I feel so terribly excited! I love his voice; it's deep and sweet, with a certain firmness; and, when I gave him my hand in saying 'Good-bye,' he didn't give a conventional handshake, but held it tight a long time. I hadn't the heart to draw it away, as I dare say I should have done. It made me thrill all over. I shall simply count the minutes until I see him again!"
There was no doubt in Laline's mind as to her companion's sincerity. Clare's eyes shone with a tender, reflective light, which marvellously enhanced her beauty; and when at last she left off talking of her conquest and retired to her own room, it was with the avowed intention of dreaming of her new admirer.
Laline for her part lay awake for a long time after Clare's departure. Just the least little pang of regret, which, however, was far removed from envy, shot across the young girl's heart as she reflected that her position in life would always be that of confidant and never of principal in love-affairs. How short a time it had taken that journey in the fiacre in the rain to the house of the English Consul; and yet the effects of that one half-hour were to be stamped upon her entire life! Of her father she often thought, sometimes with anxiety not untouched by self-reproach. She did not wish ever to see him again, nor could she school herself to forgive the callous greed with which he had designed to make a bargain of his motherless child. But he was her father—her mother had once loved him; and Laline often wondered how he had weathered the rain-cloud of debts and difficulties which had gathered over his head.
But of the man whom that same fateful visit had made her lord and master Laline hardly ever thought at all. Her life at Norwood had been too busy to allow her to indulge either in recollections of the past or dreams of the future, and in the three short weeks that she had known Wallace Armstrong she had seen so little of him that it was not surprising if her memory of him had become blurred and indistinct. The fact that he too was bound for life to a lost mate had hardly ever occurred to her; the bond was of his own choosing, and a man who, according to her father's accusations, was a forger and a cheat, might well be expected to ignore any ties which brought no profit to him.
But to-night for the first time the idea of this detested husband, this man who, in order to secure for himself an income, had married an ignorant child, for whom he cared nothing, that a lie might be turned to a truth and a victim provided, haunted Laline's wakeful spirit. She was as yet too young and too entirely fancy-free to lament with any bitterness the lifelong loneliness which Wallace Armstrong's selfish action had entailed upon her. But something in Clare's joyous description of her new love-affair recalled with painful clearness to Laline the fact that she herself was set apart from all other girls, and that never to her ears would a man's lips murmur words of love.
"I can't understand Clare's nature," she said to herself, as she lay with wide-open eyes fixed upon the darkness. "Of course I must never let myself grow fond of any man, but if I were as free as she and really cared, I could not speak of it to a stranger, and especially a stranger I did not like! And I feel sure that Clare doesn't like me, in spite of her friendliness, and that she is very jealous of me with her aunt. Life in Queen Mary Crescent will be much more difficult and complicated than it was at Norwood. But this house is very quiet, at least, and no one will dream of seeking for Laline Garth in Mrs. Vandeleur's new secretary Lina Grahame."
With this soothing reflection, Laline fell to sleep, only to awaken in terror as early morning was breaking under the influence of a disquieting dream. It seemed to her that she was transported to the gates of an earthly paradise, a garden of enchanting beauty, where she wandered at will over mossy sward, breathing moss-laden air and listening to music of a more than earthly sweetness, music that seemed to whisper of love. Suddenly, as she was giving herself up to the full delights of the scene, a loud and brutal laugh sounded close behind her, her arms were seized and loaded with chains which cut into her flesh, and when she awoke and sprang up in bed with a stifled scream, weeping and trembling, she could still hear ringing in her ears the words of her captor—
"You belong to me! I am your husband!"
Too terrified to go to sleep again, Laline lay awake until the morning, and the unpleasant impression remained so strong that when she came down to breakfast her unusual pallor excited Clare's comments.
"You look as though you and not I had been up late last night," Miss Gavan said. "I am always white, so that I don't look any different to-day. You don't seem to have any appetite. What is the matter?"
"Nothing. I've only had a horrid dream!"
"Oh, you must tell Aunt Cissy! She is great on dreams, and knows what everything in them means. People come from tremendous distances to consult her about their dreams. What was yours all about?"
"Only silly fancies. This morning I want you to tell me where I ought to go shopping. You see I don't know London at all, and I have to order four gowns of white nun's veiling, and something white I must get to wear in the house this afternoon. I have only three dresses—a black silk, a blue serge, and a gray tweed; and your aunt says they all set her teeth on edge, they are so dark and stiff and plain."
"So aunt thinks white is your color?" observed Clare, glancing askance at Laline. "She evidently considers you very candid and unsophisticated."
The words suggested a sneer, but not so the tone; and that morning Clare proved herself invaluable in assisting Laline to make her purchases. She was the right guide on such an expedition, having excellent taste and the advantages of an extremely economical training; and when the girls returned home for luncheon they were both laden with parcels and brimful of good-humour and excitement.
Very early in the afternoon Mrs. Vandeleur drove off in a hired brougham on some mysterious errand connected with her divining powers, leaving a message for her secretary to the effect that she would return between three and four o'clock, and hoped to find Miss Grahame awaiting her in the study. Clare Cavan, in a flutter of anticipation over her admirer's visit, betook herself to her room to put the finishing touches to her hair and toilet, after impressing upon Susan the necessity of letting her know at once if a gentleman should call to see her; and Laline, in the waning light of a wintry afternoon, found herself in the room sacred to her employer's occult studies.
It was too early for lamplight, yet the shadows cast by the dancing flames from the logs looked strange and eerie in that room of spells and charms. Altogether in keeping with her surroundings was the slender form, draped in the soft folds of a tea-gown of creamy-white serge and silk, seated on a low chair by the fire gazing into the glowing wood. Laline felt very nervous that day. Whether it was the result of her dream or the influence of the room she could not tell; but gradually a presentiment gathered in her mind that some momentous crisis in her life was coming nearer and nearer to her at every breath she drew.
Oppressed and over-strung, divided between a longing to fly from the room and a quivering desire to know the meaning of the strange foreboding which hung upon her spirit, Laline rose and began restlessly moving about the room, lightly lifting and as quickly putting down various trifles which arrested her attention. The firelight, glancing here and there, centred and sparkled on a crystal ball which stood on Mrs. Vandeleur's desk. In the magic crystal, Laline's employer had gravely assured her, those of pure hearts and minds, when they knew its secret, could see mirrored the future and the past. Laline raised the crystal in her hands and pored into its depths.
Half mesmerised by so intent a gaze, the memory of last night's dream returned in force upon her mind, thrown out of balance by her agitated nerves and strange surroundings. Mistily, as she looked, she seemed to behold a face she once knew mirrored within the glistening depths of the crystal. But before she could do more than recognise the features of the man she had married, the study-door opened, and a voice, not from dreamland but from reality, spoke the name—
"Mr. Wallace Armstrong!"
CHAPTER X.
At the announcement by the servant "Mr. Wallace Armstrong" the crystal ball fell from Laline's relaxed fingers and rolled upon the floor.
She stood as though paralysed, with her back to the window, through which the last rays of a fast-fading sunset touched her bright hair, making a halo of gold round her shadowed face. Her eyes were lowered; she dared not lift them; dared not meet her husband's gaze; dared not speak lest he should recognise her voice.
Wallace Armstrong, for his part, coming into the dark room, could distinguish little but a tall, slender woman's figure in long white draperies, a figure that neither moved nor spoke when the servant announced him, but stood more like a wraith than a living thing between him and the light. Was it a trick of the celebrated Mrs. Vandeleur, he wondered, to receive strangers in this way? It was certainly original and striking, if hardly calculated to set visitors at their ease.
"Is it Mrs. Vandeleur?" he asked. "I am afraid you dropped something as I came in. May I find it for you?"
As he bent his head Laline looked down upon it, and remembered, with a little quiver of repulsion, how often at the Rue Planché she had noticed his thick curly black hair.
"Here it is!" he exclaimed, at that moment. "A crystal ball. It isn't broken or even chipped. Is it a magic crystal, like the one Rossetti wrote about?"
Still she did not answer, and found, to her horror, that he was looking at her in surprise. Raising her eyes to his in a sudden defiant impulse, she realised at once that Wallace had changed almost as much as she herself had done. For one thing, the heavy dark moustache, which four years ago had shaded his mouth, was close shaved; he wore his hair much shorter than before, and the look of brooding sullenness was gone from his brow. He was now to all appearance as perfectly "in condition," physically and mentally, as before at Boulogne he had been neglected and "run down." Under straight black eyebrows his brilliant blue eyes glanced in searching interested fashion upon the face of the still figure before him; but the old haggard insolence, the old defiance and distrust, seemed to have entirely disappeared from his voice, face, and bearing, and before she had even opened her lips to speak to him, Laline felt that the horror and the hatred of years had already begun to melt away within her heart.
"I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Vandeleur," the visitor observed, after a short pause, "for my intrusion. But I know so many of your intimate friends very well indeed that I thought I might venture to call, on the strength of the letter from Lady Moreham, which I sent to you by messenger this morning. I hope, by the way, that you received it?"
It was necessary for Laline to speak at last, and in very low tones she informed Mr. Armstrong that Mrs. Vandeleur was out, and that she was her secretary.
Her heart beat so violently as she spoke that it seemed to choke her, and she almost feared that he would hear its throbbing. She had often been told that her speaking voice was one of unusual depth and sweetness, and she dreaded lest he should recognise its tones. But though he inclined his head a little in her direction, the better to catch her murmured words, Mr. Armstrong made no comment upon them, but broke at once into talk upon the different objects of interest about the room.
"May I wait here until Mrs. Vandeleur returns?" he asked; and, when she bowed her head in response, he went on at once with his remarks. "Like a page of old-world romance this room is. One might expect any wonder amid such surroundings. Are you versed in occult lore, may I ask? Miss Cavan, as I understand, admits that it has a kind of terrifying fascination for her."
A light seemed to flash upon Laline. This man, Wallace Armstrong, her husband, was none other than Clare Cavan's rich admirer, to whom she had been introduced on the preceding evening. Why had not some prescience taught her—Laline—who it was that Clare had described as tall and strong, blue-eyed, black-haired, of Highland descent, and next-of-kin to one of the richest men in London!
This man, then, had presented himself at Mrs. Vandeleur's house in the character of her niece's lover, disregarding altogether the ceremony which had bound him, more than four years ago, to a bride who had escaped from him.
As to his gentleness of manner, Laline knew better than to trust to that. Vividly, while he spoke, she recalled Wallace's good-humour and kindness to her friends the children, and the treats he had given them at the pastry-cook's, and afterwards in that memorable drive. All the experiences of those three weeks seemed to crowd back upon the girl's memory, the while Wallace, not unnaturally mistaking her awkward silence for shyness, strove by talking to put her at her ease.
If only Mrs. Vandeleur or Clare would come, she thought, and end this terrible tête-à-tête! She scarcely heeded the words he uttered, so concerned was she in listening for tones in his voice which she could recognise. She had never even asked him to sit down, nor did she dare to ring for lights. So that she was standing just where he had found her on entering the room, with her back to the window and her hands clasped before her, when the door opened noiselessly, and Clare Cavan crept towards them.
"Why, how dark it is!" she exclaimed. "And how stupid of Susan to have shown you up here, Mr. Armstrong! How are you? I must ring at once for the lamp. I had no idea that you were here."
"I think the servant was under the impression that your aunt had returned," said Wallace, as he turned to shake hands with Clare. In an instant Laline made a swift movement towards the door, hoping to escape before he had clearly seen her; but in this design she was circumvented by the sudden entry of Susan, who met her in the doorway, carrying in her hands the upper portion of the tall lamp which usually stood by the side of Mrs. Vandeleur's writing-table.
The light fell full on Laline's face, and quick as thought Wallace Armstrong turned and gazed upon her features thus revealed to him. As though to facilitate his inspection, Susan, lamp in hand, paused by the door to inform Miss Grahame of Mrs. Vandeleur's return; and Wallace Armstrong gazed his fill, and all his life remembered vividly just how her face looked then—the lovely flesh-tints paled with agitation and fear, the soft dark eyes distended, and between the level brown eyebrows two perpendicular lines indicative of worry and distress. Every curve of the parted red lips, of the firmly-modelled chin and long well-rounded throat, he learned by heart in those few seconds, and his eyes lingered with wondering admiration upon her small pink ear, set far back, and enhanced in beauty by the bright hair, almost yellow at this point, which half-veiled the upper portion of its curled outline.
Clare Cavan noted with astonishment and indignation the direction of Wallace's eyes—noted, too, the perceptible start he gave as he first beheld Laline's face in the full light, and the fixed intensity of his gaze. A keen stab of venomous jealousy shot through Clare's heart, and she mentally registered a vow to be even with Laline for having provoked Mr. Armstrong's attention.
Left alone with Clare, Wallace surprised her by making no reference to Laline. He began, on the contrary, at once to talk of the various persons whom they had met on the preceding evening—light desultory conversation, not at all after Miss Cavan's heart, which he continued until the entrance of Mrs. Vandeleur broke up their tête-à-tête.
Wallace Armstrong was a man of considerable determination and strength of character, as might be guessed by the squareness of his jaw and the firm lines of his handsome mouth. He had fully made up his mind this afternoon to please Mrs. Vandeleur, and he succeeded admirably. The genuine interest he took both in her personality and her pursuits made it easy work for him to please her, the more so as the little lady was greatly swayed by the outside appearance of those she met, and Mr. Armstrong's finely proportioned figure, handsome face, and frank and courteous manners were well calculated to satisfy the most exacting of women.
To him the experience was unique and delightful. This picturesque little old-young lady, with her powdered hair, her odd talk and pretensions to hidden powers, her shimmering gray-satin gown redolent of some faint Eastern perfume, her dainty lace frills and cuffs, her small fingers sparkling with diamonds, and her searching dark eyes peering at him from behind her jewelled eye-glasses, Wallace considered a most interesting and delightful personage; while, as offering a contrast to her rococo charm, Clare Cavan, in a tea-gown of sea-green cashmere and silk, her untidy yellow-red hair crowning her alluring white face, appeared to supply just the note of flesh-and-blood actuality which would otherwise have been wanting in the scene.
Clare made tea, and hovered near him as much as possible. Not once did Mr. Armstrong allude to his meeting with the secretary; but he questioned Mrs. Vandeleur closely as to the properties of the crystal which he had seen fall from Laline's hands when he entered the room.
"The story is that only certain special temperaments can discover anything in it, isn't it?" he asked, while he held the ball in his hands and examined it carefully.
"It is a gift," said Mrs. Vandeleur—"a gift given to few. Happily I have discovered a young girl whose mind is so finely tempered that in time she may go very far, very far indeed, in the study of the occult."
"Indeed! May I ask how you came across her?"
"Outsiders would tell you by accident; but my creed does not admit of accident. I put certain words in a public print, and directed them to one particular type of mind. I wanted that especial spirit; I appealed to that, and it came to me as surely as a needle comes to a magnet. That was all."
"But you had heaps and heaps of unsuitable replies as well, aunt," put in Clare, sweetly.
It was by such remarks as this that she daily alienated her aunt's liking more completely; but for reasons of her own Clare did not wish the conversation to turn upon Laline.
"They do not count," said Mrs. Vandeleur, loftily, though with a shade of annoyance on her brow. "The world will always be composed of the two or three who understand and the millions who do not. Suffice it that I found the temperament I required—a creature of perfect purity and truth, unsullied by thoughts of love or money."
"'Her soul was pure and true;
The good stars met in her horoscope,
Made her of spirit, fire, and dew,'"
quoted Wallace Armstrong, looking steadily in the fire, as though he saw some picture there—a picture, it might be, of a tall and slender maiden, in straight white draperies, with her sweet face lowered and the light making an aureole of her hair.
"Whose lines are those," asked Mrs. Vandeleur, much interested, "and why do you quote them?"
"They are from Browning's 'Evelyn Hope,' and they seemed appropriate to such a woman as you were describing."
"You have seen Miss Grahame, my aunt's secretary, of whom she is speaking, Mr. Armstrong," said Clare, hardly able to control her vexation, but speaking very sweetly. "She was here with you when I came in."
"There was a lady here when I entered, and I supposed that she was Mrs. Vandeleur at first," he answered, composedly; "but she hardly spoke, except to tell me of my mistake, and it was much too dark to see her face."
"I thought you saw her when the lamp came in," observed Clare, innocently. "She is such a nice girl, full of fun, and does so enjoy shopping! I hope you will like the tea-gown I got for her at Baker's this morning, aunt. Lina much prefers stiff tweed or serge tailor-built things; but I knew you insisted upon white dresses and flowing lines for her, so I coaxed her into having them. I don't think I ever saw anybody so fond of sweets; she is quite like a child in a grocer's shop!"
By this artfully-planned speech Clare hoped that she had spoiled the romantic effect of Laline's appearance. "Evelyn Hope" enjoying sweets in a grocer's shop, and with difficulty restrained from purchasing tweed tailor-made gowns, was surely sufficiently prosaic. Apparently Wallace thought so too, for he did not pursue the subject, and the talk presently drifted to palmistry.
"Some day you must tell my fortune, Mrs. Vandeleur," her visitor said.
"A good deal of it I can read in your face," said the little lady, promptly. "You have considerable self-control, but you are capable of going to the greatest lengths of what people would call folly for the sake of one you love. You like many people; you love very few. But where you love, it is a passion, a religion."
He flushed deeply, and then laughed.
"I don't think I am quite so fine a character as you are kind enough to suppose me," he said. "There are no deep tragedies in the daily routine of life at a bank for a rich man's nephew."
"Yet you have had some moving experiences," pursued Mrs. Vandeleur thoughtfully, still scanning him through her eye-glasses—"experiences involving much will-power and considerable self-sacrifice, and making their mark upon your after-life."
"Has Lady Moreham told you much about me?" he asked, quickly.
"I do not need to be told by others what I can read in your face. Give me your hand; now both hands."
She bent closely over first one and then the other for a moment, and then looked up.
"Another's life, another's career is strangely involved in yours," she said. "Your line of fate is hampered by another's. It is an association which will bring you nothing but harm. It still lies within your power to sever it."
Clare Cavan, watching curiously, saw the young man's healthy colour pale and a set look come into his mouth. But he did not speak, and Mrs. Vandeleur continued.
"Just at this point in your career the easy life you have led of late will be utterly changed. Your whole existence will be swerved from its ordinary course, for a new and most powerful element will enter it. From what I can judge, it will be love, the love of a woman."
A triumphant smile flashed into Clare's eyes. She was inclined to place implicit faith in her aunt's prophecies, and had little doubt but that a passion for herself would be the new element introduced into Wallace Armstrong's career. Apart from his monetary position, she was really very much in love with this extremely personable young man, who clearly admired her, and was desirous of getting into her aunt's good graces. Mrs. Vandeleur's Sibylline speeches about his future were therefore profoundly interesting to Clare, who sat supporting her chin on her hands in a picturesque attitude near the fire, listening with all her ears.
"Your love-affairs will bring you a great deal of trouble," pursued the little prophetess. "Or, rather, I should say, your love-affair, for you will have but one."
"Won't she return my affection, then?" asked Wallace, half laughing, but with a note of suppressed eagerness in his voice.
"There will be trouble and partings and evil wrought you by an enemy, until death severs a link and you are free."
Mrs. Vandeleur spoke slowly and oracularly on her last words; she dropped his hands, and, leaning back in her chair, passed her fingers wearily over her eyes.
"I am tired," she said. "But I foresee trouble before you, and I should like to warn you, for I take a great interest in you. Be very wary of your friends. False love and false friendship are Will-o'-the-wisps, to lead you to destruction. Now you must go. I have my work to attend to. But you must come and see me again often, very often, for I like you."
With an imperial graciousness she stretched out her hand, which Wallace lightly kissed, as he felt he was expected to do.
"I am really grateful for your kind forethought about my future," he said, "and I shall certainly come again."
He was not in the least superstitious, and Mrs. Vandeleur's pretensions to omniscience surprised and amused him; but he realised that she was at least sincere in her charlatanism, and that she believed in herself almost as much as she expected others to believe in her. Moreover, she had touched a sore and secret place in his heart in her rambling talk. No one knew better than he how the course of his life for the past few years had been overshadowed by an association of ill omen, so far as his own prospects were concerned, and Mrs. Vandeleur's intuition in this respect impressed him considerably.
Clare Cavan led him down the stairs and opened the street-door for him, looking strangely beautiful with the light from the ruby-coloured lamp in the hall falling on her shining hair and white face, and Wallace turned on the pavement to look back and bow again to her. But Miss Cavan had closed the door, not finding the north-east wind to her liking; and at the dining-room window, close pressed against the glass, watching his retreating figure, was the face of the secretary, Lina Grahame, wearing a look of unmistakable dislike and fear.
"That little old lady with the powdered hair is a witch!" Wallace said to himself, as he pursued his way. "I am already in love, and already in trouble over it."
CHAPTER XI.
That night Laline went to bed with her head in a whirl of emotion and perplexity.
All through the evening she had had to endure the comments of both Mrs. Vandeleur and her niece on the manners and appearance, the character, and the prospects of Wallace Armstrong, and had had to listen, to all appearance unmoved, while the possibilities of his falling in love and marrying were freely discussed.
And all the while she knew that she was his wife, sold by an impecunious father, bought by a penniless husband, unrecognised and forgotten, but his wife none the less in the eyes of the law and the sight of heaven.
She could have laughed aloud when Mrs. Vandeleur gravely stated that Wallace Armstrong was a man of "singular nobility of character, of fine artistic tastes, chivalrous instincts, and a high disregard of mercenary considerations." She could not even join in praise of his good looks.
"I think I have a prejudice against men with square jaws and black hair and light eyes," was all that she said.
But there was a marked constraint in her tone, and Mrs. Vandeleur glanced at her sharply.
"You seem to have taken a dislike against Mr. Armstrong," she said. "It is curious, for his is a nature which should blend perfectly with yours. I should certainly not have thought you had been born under opposing planets."
"I don't feel that I ever want to meet him again!" said Laline, emphatically.
"Above all, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Vandeleur, holding up a warning forefinger, "don't attempt to run counter to such an instinct as that! When your whole spirit seems to rise in arms against a personality, the feeling of repulsion is given you as a token to beware of them; and, if you feel as you say towards Mr. Armstrong, have nothing whatever to do with him!"
"I will take your advice," said Laline, dutifully.
But the oddest little prick of vexation came to her as she spoke. In spite of her dread of her husband, and her terror lest he should recognise in her the lost Laline, she had been strangely interested in him that afternoon. His gentleness and geniality she knew to be a sham, his agreeable manners merely things he assumed and dropped at will. None knew better than she that Wallace Armstrong was a man without honour, principle, or remorse—one who would lie and cheat and drink and swear, who would strike an old man and deceive a friendless girl—a creature in whom no truth was to be found. And yet, in spite of all this, and of the fact that he had entered Mrs. Vandaleur's house in the character of Clare Cavan's favoured admirer, Laline could not rid her mind of a secret hankering to see him again.
After all, he was her husband, although he did not know it. It would be her duty not to let his courtship of Clare go too far. Reveal herself she could not and would not; but she might at least contrive to learn from him news of her father. With such excuses she tried to blind herself to the fact that she wanted—greatly wanted, and yet as greatly feared—to meet Wallace Armstrong again.
The thought of him was ever present in her mind, although neither Mrs. Vandeleur nor Clare could contrive to draw from her another remark concerning him. Her brain was fully occupied with him as she put her head down on her pillow, and it was but natural that he should dominate her dreams, through the whole course of which she fancied herself alternately pursuing and fleeing from her husband.
Life at No. 21, Queen Mary Crescent was an entirely novel experience for Laline. Mrs. Vandeleur breakfasted in her bedroom—a small but cosy apartment on the ground floor, built out at the back of the house, and adjoining the dining- and drawing-rooms. By eleven o'clock she was visible, and Laline was required to read aloud to her, to copy or write at dictation, and to listen to long, rambling accounts of her employer's dreams, her opinions, or her psychic experiences. At half-past one the secretary was sent down-stairs to her luncheon; and from half-past three to half-past six or seven on four days a week Mrs. Vandeleur received visitors by appointment, and was by them consulted as to their past, present, and future.
There was no fixed rate of payment for these interviews; and, but for Clare's insidious suggestions, Laline would have thought that Mrs. Vandeleur cast horoscopes, read hands, and shuffled cards from pure love of necromantic lore. But on this point Miss Cavan undeceived her.
"Of course, dear Aunt Cissy doesn't make fixed charges," she purred, "because she knows its actionable. There's an absurd prejudice against fortune-telling and all that sort of thing, you know, though it's only really wicked when dirty old women do it at the back door! When ladies call on Aunt Cissy, after Susan has shown them into the drawing-room, and you have next gone in and taken stock of them and prepared aunt to receive them, they talk to her about themselves and their characters and their love-affairs, and ask her advice and so on, till she must be perfectly sick of them! And, although she likes the importance of it enormously, divination and all that sort of thing take it out of her dreadfully. So it's only fair that she should get paid well for it. People know that, and, when they go, they slip gold or a cheque under the blotting-book on the writing-table. I peeped in once just before a séance, and saw the ends of several cheques sticking out of the shark's-skin cover of the blotter, and several loose sovereigns on the table beside it, just to give visitors a hint, no doubt. Aunt Cissy only has a mean little allowance from her husband—nothing like enough to satisfy her desire for the beautiful. You can't surround yourself with old oak and old silver and china and curios, and wear the whitest diamonds and the finest lace on two hundred a year. Oh, Aunt Cissy's very rich indeed—or she would be if she didn't waste so much money on knick-knacks and lumber!"
More than once Laline asked herself if she was not tacitly condoning a fraud by accepting her position in the establishment. But it was so clear that Mrs. Vandeleur thoroughly believed in herself, and also so certain that her intuition was little short of marvellous and her advice generally excellent, that Laline could not esteem her less on account of her professional fortune-telling.
Only on very rare occasions was Laline present at the interviews between Mrs. Vandeleur and her clients. The secretary herself, slim and tall, in her straight, white draperies, was a fascinating addition to the little sibyl's household, her pure profile and dreamy dark eyes proving specially attractive to Mrs. Vandeleur's male visitors. Clare Cavan, listening to all that passed between Laline and these latter from behind the plush curtains between the dining- and drawing-rooms, clenched her fists with envy, and could scarcely repress her scorn for a girl who let slip such splendid opportunities of securing valuable presents and the possibility of a brilliant marriage.
"It's aunt's wicked jealousy which makes her forbid me to see anybody who calls on business," Miss Cavan told herself. "That fool Lina snubbed a Russian prince yesterday! If I had been in her place, and he had offered me jewelry, I wouldn't have let him off under a hundred-guinea bracelet. I know as well as she does how to take care of myself; but an offer like that deserves something better than a frigid 'I have no jewels, and I require none! I will tell Mrs. Vandeleur you wish to consult her on your domestic affairs, and will explain by whom you are introduced.' Lina is a prude, or else she is much deeper than I am."
Meantime Clare was somewhat concerned because a whole week had elapsed since Wallace Armstrong's visit. It was true that he had written to Mrs. Vandeleur, asking whether she and her niece and secretary would care to pay a visit to the ancient house over Alexander Wallace's bank, to take tea there with himself and his uncle; but the wording of his letter had been far from satisfactory to Miss Cavan.
"I know how much interested you are in all that is ancient and historical," he wrote, "and I feel sure that, with your vivid imagination and insight, you would people some of the old rooms with occupants long since dead. My uncle, who declares himself too old to pay visits, and who is indeed verging on seventy, is very desirous of making your acquaintance. His early Scotch training inclines him to especial interest in second sight and similar phenomena, and I am certain that you would have many subjects in common. He particularly loves to see bright young faces about him, and would, I know, be delighted to welcome those charming young ladies, Miss Cavan, and your secretary Miss Grahame, under his roof. So that I hope you will be able to fix an afternoon next week on which to honour the old house with a visit."
Mrs. Vandeleur had shown this letter to Clare, whose anger over one portion thereof had been extreme.
"Those charming young ladies, Miss Cavan and Miss Grahame," was the line that especially stuck in Clare's throat. By some means Lina Grahame must be kept away from this visit, which should be made to serve the very desirable purpose of introducing Clare to her future husband's uncle. That Alexander Wallace would take a great fancy to her Clare never doubted. Old men always admired her, her striking colouring and beautifully-rounded figure appealing even to the purblind. And she meant to be a very good niece to the wealthy banker, and a devoted wife to Wallace, so long as she should remain in love with him; and at the present time she did not foresee the possibility of her quick passion waning, as it had done on previous occasions. But Lina Grahame must not be present to spoil her plans; and Clare was greatly relieved when that young lady flatly refused the invitation as soon as it was announced to her.
"I shall ask Mrs. Vandeleur to let me stay at home," she said, while a deep flush spread over her face.
It was not only that she dreaded seeing more of her husband, in spite of the lurking fascination which he exercised over her, but that she felt unequal to the signal hypocrisy of meeting face to face that kindly-natured old Alexander Wallace, whose letter welcoming her as his niece she so well remembered reading in the streets of Boulogne more than four years ago. Naturally truthful and sincere, Laline felt that it would be impossible for her to grasp the old man by the hand and sit at his table, the while she was rewarding his hospitality and friendliness with mean deceit, and that she would be untrue to herself were she to submit to such an ordeal.
Clare understood none of the thoughts which flew through her companion's brain, but she could not fail to note the changes on Laline's face, the sudden blush and the agitated expression in her eyes.
"I think you are quite right not to go," she said, soothingly. "Of course aunt and I and the nicer sort of people one meets appreciate you thoroughly, and know that you are a lovely and charming and well-bred lady. But I have heard that dear Mr. Armstrong was at one time rather go-ahead, and men are so stupid about little social distinctions; they never seem to realise the difference between a secretary and a lady's-maid, especially if both are pretty!"
Laline knew by this time quite enough of Clare to understand that the latter wished her to remain at home, and she almost laughed outright at the idea that she must not meet her own husband, lest she might spoil another girl's chances of marrying him. But there was no thought of marriage yet, and there would be time enough to speak out before then. Laline felt that she had reached a point in her life when to look forward was impossible. Wallace himself knew that he was married, and surely that knowledge should be sufficient to deter him from creating false hopes within another girl's heart! But in Wallace's honour, as Laline knew well, but little reliance was to be placed, and a pang of pity went through her as she looked at Clare and noticed the eager brightness of her eyes.
"Are you really fond of this Wallace Armstrong?" she asked her.
"My dear, I simply adore him! Do you wonder? Oh, I forgot that you didn't admire him! But you must admit that he is handsome and fascinating."
"I dare say many people would think so. But you told me just now that he had been wild. Surely you could not love a man of really bad reputation!"
"Oh, he has sown his wild oats by this time, no doubt! I should think he is nearly thirty. Besides, all men go the pace a little—I'm sure I should if I were a man. It's really too bad that we women should have to be so very, very good! Besides, I didn't hear anything very bad—only that he'd gambled a little bit and got into debt and been sent abroad for a time to cool him down. You can't cut a man for that sort of thing, otherwise one would have to drop all one's male acquaintances except school-boys."
Laline said no more. It was obviously impossible under the circumstances to warn Clare. Sometimes the girl wondered whether she should confide in Mrs. Vandeleur; but again she hesitated. Might not that lady—who, if her niece spoke truly, was of the world-worldly—be inclined to advise her young secretary to leave off the difficult struggle for life of a penniless girl, and, by simply announcing her identity, become reconciled to an easy and prosperous existence with a wealthy husband, who to strangers' eyes appeared to be all that was handsome, well-bred, and charming?
The mere idea was horrible to Laline. Never so long as she lived would she forget that scene of which she had been an unsuspected witness on her wedding morning. At any moment she could close her eyes and recall her father's flushed face and the angry pallor of her husband, could see both men, excited by drink and hate, struggling within a few feet of where she stood. At any moment she could recall the callous tones in which her newly-made husband had spoken of her as a "lanky, half-fledged school-girl," who would be a "drag and a burden" on his life after having served his purpose by procuring for him his uncle's money and favour, and could hear again the sinister menace in his tones when he alluded to the possibility that she might refuse to tell lies to Alexander Wallace on his behalf.
That scene in the little salon of the Rue Planché had been the turning-point of Laline's career, and had suddenly transformed the dreamy, lonely child, super-sensitive to kindness and of grateful, docile nature, into a woman, alert and thoughtful beyond her years, and armed with self-control, with suspicion, and with reserve.
Her nature was not meant to tend towards independence and mistrust of others. Love had been a necessity to Laline as a child; she had loved her mother intensely, and had felt her loss as irreparable. Torn from the refined seclusion of her early home, she had tried to adapt herself to the impecunious Bohemianism of her father's house, and had tried also very hard indeed to love her father. Had Wallace Armstrong not shown himself in his true colours on his wedding morning, she would in all probability have grown much attached to him, in spite of his sullen temper and dissipated habits. Already he had appeared to her eyes as a hero, a fairy prince, who had come to rescue Cinderella from Bénoîte's back kitchen and eternal darning, cooking, and dish-washing. But when, by the half-open salon door, she had stood and heard her husband and father quarrelling over the terms of the sale by which she had become Wallace Armstrong's property to free him from his money difficulties, her child's heart broke within her breast; she seemed to see the very minds and souls of the two men, vicious, sordid, and cruel, and her pure spirit shrank in horror at the sight. The impression was one which neither time nor the wear and tear of life would ever efface; and even now, when Wallace Armstrong had again appeared within her life, to all appearance a reformed character, with little trace of his former self remaining between her and her thoughts of him, the black soul of the scoundrel who had married her seemed to rise in warning against the folly of trusting such a man.
It was on a Saturday that Clare had discussed with Laline the invitation to the bank, a day that Laline ever afterwards remembered, bleak and wintry, the sky a chill gray, deepening to saffron near the horizon. On Saturday and Wednesday afternoons Mrs. Vandeleur drove out, sometimes with her secretary and sometimes alone. On this particular day she was bidden to a conference between patrons of the "occult" and distinguished sceptics at the house of a well-known woman of title interested in every new craze. Before four o'clock Clare also left the house to go to one of the many "At homes" at which her beauty and liveliness rendered her a most popular guest; and Laline found herself for the first time since her arrival in London alone and free, with at least three hours at her own disposal.
Twenty-one Queen Mary Crescent was by no means a cheerful house after dusk, being full of creaking boards and a general "eeriness." Laline wanted to think, and had never lost her old love of wandering about alone in the open air. Within ten minutes of Clare's departure therefore she emerged from the house in her blue serge gown and a long fur-lined black cloak, and struck at once from the High Street into Kensington Gardens, her cheeks rosy under the touch of frosty air, and her heart beating with a strange excitement, which seemed to presage some unusual experience.
CHAPTER XII.
Laline met very few people in Kensington Gardens that afternoon.
The wind was keen, and every now and then drifting snowflakes told of the coming storm. The Round Pond was covered with a thin sheet of ice, and upon the green roof of Kensington Palace the snow was lightly strewn.
Laline walked fast, with eyes fixed steadfastly in front of her, absorbed in her own thoughts, holding her cloak together round her, and bending her supple frame to the wind.
It was her first walk unattended in the Gardens, and her errant footsteps led her to a long leafless avenue, through which she walked rapidly, listening to the wind in the branches above her head.
Suddenly mingling with the sound came a voice close behind her, upon hearing which she stopped with a smothered cry and turned a startled face towards the speaker.
Some instinct had told her that she would meet him, and it was to her own astonishment that she realised how glad she was to see him.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Grahame! Isn't it odd? Bad as the day is, I felt certain I should meet you here!"
"And I knew that I should meet you," she returned, quickly, before taking thought; then, seeing the gladness in his eyes, she added, hastily,—
"That is nothing! I have had those presentiments about people ever since I was a child. And they are not necessarily about people I know and like well, but also——"
"About people you dislike—such as I?"
"I was not going to say that, Mr. Armstrong," she said, rather coldly. "'About strangers,' I should have said, although I really think," she added, thoughtfully, "that there is a sympathy of dislike, if one can call it so."
"And so by your sympathy of dislike you knew I should be here, and by my sympathy of like I knew you would be here—and we have met."
This was flirting, of course. Even inexperienced Laline knew that quite well. There was, of course, no harm in flirting with one's own husband; but then he did not know he was that, and must be put in his place.
"I am not good at discussing abstract subjects with strangers," she said; "and, also, I must be getting back home now."
"Just a moment," he pleaded. "I know Mrs. Vandeleur will be at Lady Northlake's conversazione—so that she can spare you; and this keen wind is wonderfully invigorating. Don't you feel the benefit of it after the exotic atmosphere of Mrs. Vandeleur's study? Too much of that can't be good for any one, either physically or mentally; and especially," he added, glancing at her thin face and lustrous eyes—"especially bad for you."
"Why especially bad for me?"
"Because I should think you are exceptionally sensitive, Miss Grahame. What you said just now proved that—I mean about those presentiments."
"Are you exceptionally sensitive, then?" she asked, forcing a little laugh. "For, as I understand, you have presentiments, too."
"Perhaps I am," he answered, slowly, "where some people are concerned. I have an impression about you, Miss Grahame, which is very strong indeed, and about which I want to speak to you."
For a moment Laline's heart seemed to stand still. Was he going to tell her that he had recognised her, and to show himself at last in his true colours?
"Please don't tell me!" she cried, sharply, with an unmistakable tremor in her voice. "It is late, and I am going home. Good-afternoon, Mr. Armstrong!"
"Don't go yet! Just walk once more up the avenue."
"I have not been very much about the world," Laline said, icily, "but I do not think it is customary for young ladies to walk about with strangers."
"I am not a stranger!" he said, emphatically. "Why do you look so startled, Miss Grahame? I can't believe that you and I met for the first time a week ago. If we did, why did you drop that crystal ball in consternation as soon as I entered the room, and why did I feel, as soon as I saw the lamplight on your face, that I had beheld it before? Only my recollection of you is as a child, with long bright hair waving about your shoulders, and——"
"Fancies—mere fancies!" she interrupted. "Mine is not an unusual type of face in England."
"A most unusual type, I call it," he rejoined, earnestly, "and one that I am longing to commit to paper. My body, you must know, Miss Grahame, sits before a desk in a bank all day, but in my mind I am forever drawing and painting, committing lovely scenes and lovely faces very inadequately to canvas."
"I remember," she said, in constrained tones, "that you first met Miss Cavan in a picture-gallery."
"And I remember," he returned, composedly, "how like I thought her to a Paris Bordone. Miss Cavan's colouring is very fine, and there is altogether a Venetian opulence about her appearance. If you are at all interested in pictures, you will see some very good ones when you come, as I hope you will, with Mrs. Vandeleur to my uncle's house next week to tea."
"Thank you," she said, trying vainly to adopt an indifferent 'society' tone. "I am unfortunately engaged that day."
"But no day was fixed," he cried; "and it must be a day on which you are not engaged! I am most anxious that you should know my uncle. You must, I think, be quite his ideal."
"How can you possibly know," she asked, "what my character may be? You forget, Mr. Armstrong, that you know absolutely nothing about me."
"It seems impossible," he said, thoughtfully, "and yet I suppose it is true, as facts go, and that I must have seen that face so like yours, with floating hair, in my dreams. But facts are the least important things in this world, Miss Grahame. It is only by reading between the lines of the facts of his life that we really know any man. A bare summary of events teaches us nothing. We live outside, or, rather, inside of what happens to us."
"Now you are talking like Mrs. Vandeleur," said Laline, interested in spite of herself.
"But don't you agree with me? Here are you and I, as far apart as two fixed stars, each within a little world wherein the other cannot hope to tread, except, perhaps, sometimes in dreams. To show you how little value facts have—I met you, as you say, a week ago for the first time; you just spoke a few words, telling me Mrs. Vandeleur was out and would soon return. I spoke to you; I don't know what I talked about, for I was feeling your presence too deeply to be coherent even before I saw your face; then a light was brought, and I learned your features by heart, every turn of every line of them, before you left the room. And, as I went out of the house, fully an hour later, I saw your face again, pressed against the window, watching me with something in your eyes that looked like dislike and fear. To-day I meet you for the second time, and you speak to me with coldness and dislike in every note of your voice. All that is not much to go upon—is it?"
Although she hated and despised herself for it, her heart went out to him as her ear caught the ring of deep feeling in his voice.
"I don't know what you mean!" she faltered, lamely.
"I mean that such an acquaintance as ours would seem short and slight as mere facts go. And yet the thought of you has never once left my mind since I parted from you, and the moment I close my eyes in sleep you dominate my dreams. You come to me, and in just the voice you speak in now, only less hard and cold, you tell me that something stands between us and prevents you from liking me; and just as I am urging you to tell me what the barrier is, I awake, with my question unanswered."
"I am really not responsible for your dreams, Mr. Armstrong."
"Yet it is your influence which suggests them. Do you never dream yourself?"
"Yes; but I attach no importance to such disconnected nonsense as dreams always are!" she said, hastily, realising, to her intense discomfiture, that she was suddenly growing crimson.
"But tell me," he said, earnestly, "just for curiosity, as I know that you are interested in all psychic studies, whether you ever dream of strangers whom you dislike—of me, for instance?"
"It is beginning to snow," said Laline, staring up in the sky and ignoring his question, "and I have no umbrella."
"But I have. You must let me hold it over you."
And, almost before she guessed his intention, he had opened his umbrella and drawn her hand through his arm.
"You can't get wet now," he said.
"Would you like really to know what I think of you?" Laline asked, in a low and rather unsteady voice.
"Yes—even though I am sure it will hurt me!"
"I think," she said, with much deliberation, "that, in a very cruel and cowardly manner, you are taking advantage of the fact that I am a friendless dependant to treat me with a flirting familiarity which you would not dare to show towards a lady whom you considered your equal!"
He could feel that the hand on his arm was quivering, as was her whole frame, with excitement and anger.
"Is that what you think of me?" he asked, quietly.
"It is. And, if you wish me to retain any respect for you, or ever to speak to you when I am forced to meet you in my employer's house, you will leave me at once, Mr. Armstrong."
"Surely not in the snow, without an umbrella?" he suggested, still unmoved.
She withdrew her hand sharply from his arm, biting her lips with vexation.
"I cannot run away from you," she began.
"I should certainly run after you, and that would look absurd!" he put in.
"I shall be compelled to speak about you to Mrs. Vandeleur," Laline said, beginning to walk rapidly homewards.
"I hope and intend to speak of you to Mrs. Vandeleur very shortly," said Wallace Armstrong.
She turned and stared at him in surprise.
"You mean to speak to Mrs. Vandeleur about me? I don't understand you!"
"No; you don't in the least understand me, or you would never have spoken to me as you did just now! If you will only be good and come under the umbrella again and take my arm, I will explain. Miss Grahame, I force my attentions and my society upon you, and behave with what you call flirting familiarity, because I am not much used to courting, and it's the only method I know. Finding you here alone was far too good a chance to miss, so you must forgive me if I have hurried the pace a little. It may be a very long time before I have such an opportunity again."