“Nonsense!”
“I always told you that it would be so. And now you may perhaps acknowledge that Conway Dalrymple’s prospects are not very brilliant. I hope he likes being cut out by Mr. Musselboro! Of course he will have to marry Maria. I do not see how he can escape. Indeed, she is too good for him;—only after such a marriage as that, there would be an end to all his prospects as an artist. The best thing for them would be to go to New Zealand.”
John Eames certainly liked these evenings with Miss Demolines. He sat at his ease in a comfortable chair, and amused himself by watching her different little plots. And then she had bright eyes, and she flattered him, and allowed him to scold her occasionally. And now and again there might be some more potent attraction, when she would admit him to take her hand—or the like. It was better than to sit smoking with men at the club. But he could not sit all night even with Madalina Demolines, and at eleven he got up to take his leave. “When shall you see Miss Dale?” she asked him suddenly.
“I do not know,” he answered, frowning at her. He always frowned at her when she spoke to him of Miss Dale.
“I do not in the least care for your frowns,” she said playfully, putting up her hands to smooth his brows. “I think I know you intimately enough to name your goddess to you.”
“She isn’t my goddess.”
“A very cold goddess, I should think, from what I hear. I wish to ask you for a promise respecting her.”
“What promise?”
“Will you grant it me?”
“How can I tell till I hear?”
“You must promise me not to speak of me to her when you see her.”
“But why must I promise that?”
“Promise me.”
“Not unless you tell me why.” Johnny had already assured himself that nothing could be more improbable than that he should mention the name of Miss Demolines to Lily Dale.
“Very well, sir. Then you may go. And I must say that unless you can comply with so slight a request as that, I shall not care to see you here again. Mr. Eames, why should you want to speak evil of me to Miss Dale?”
“I do not want to speak evil of you.”
“I know that you could not speak of me to her without at least ridicule. Come, promise me. You shall come here on Thursday evening, and I will tell you why I have asked you.”
“Tell me now.”
She hesitated a moment, and then shook her head. “No. I cannot tell you now. My heart is still bleeding with the memory of that poor man’s fate. I will not tell you now. And yet it is now that you must give me the promise. Will you not trust me so far as that?”
“I will not speak of you to Miss Dale.”
“There is my own friend! And now, John, mind you are here at half-past eight on Thursday. Punctually at half-past eight. There is a thing I have to tell you, which I will tell you then if you will come. I had thought to have told you today.”
“And why not now?”
“I cannot. My feelings are too many for me. I should never go through with it after all that has passed between us about poor Broughton. I should break down; indeed I should. Go now, for I am tired.” Then, having probably taken a momentary advantage of that more potent attraction to which we have before alluded, he left the room very suddenly.
He left the room very suddenly because Madalina’s movements had been so sudden, and her words so full of impulse. He had become aware that in this little game which he was playing in Porchester Terrace everything ought to be done after some unaccustomed and special fashion. So—having clasped Madalina for one moment in his arms—he made a rush at the room door, and was out on the landing in a second. He was a little too quick for old Lady Demolines, the skirt of whose nightdress—as it seemed to Johnny—he saw whisking away, in at another door. It was nothing, however, to him if old Lady Demolines, who was always too ill to be seen, chose to roam about her own house in her nightdress.
When he found himself alone in the street, his mind reverted to Dobbs Broughton and the fate of the wretched man, and he sauntered slowly down Palace Gardens, that he might look at the house in which he had dined with a man who had destroyed himself by his own hands. He stood for a moment looking up at the windows, in which there was now no light, thinking of the poor woman whom he had seen in the midst of luxury, and who was now left a widow in such miserable circumstances! As for the suggestion that his friend Conway would marry her, he did not believe it for a moment. He knew too well what the suggestions of his Madalina were worth, and the motives from which they sprung. But he thought it might be true that Mrs. Van Siever had absorbed all there was of property, and possibly, also, that Musselboro was to marry her daughter. At any rate, he would go to Dalrymple’s rooms, and if he could find him, would learn the truth. He knew enough of Dalrymple’s ways of life, and of the ways of his friend’s chambers and studio, to care nothing for the lateness of the hour, and in a very few minutes he was sitting in Dalrymple’s armchair. He found Siph Dunn there, smoking in unperturbed tranquillity, and as long as that lasted he could ask no questions about Mrs. Broughton. He told them, therefore, of his adventures abroad, and of Crawley’s escape. But at last, having finished his third pipe, Siph Dunn took his leave.
“Tell me,” said John, as soon as Dunn had closed the door, “what
