And straightway Miss Millicent Chyne went upstairs to put on her best dress.
We men cannot expect to understand these small matters—these exigencies, as it were, of female life. But we may be permitted to note feebly en passant through existence that there are occasions when women put on their best clothes without the desire to please. And, while Millicent Chyne was actually attiring herself, Jocelyn Gordon, in another house not so far away, was busy with that beautiful hair of hers, patting here, drawing out there, pinning, poking, pressing with all the cunning that her fingers possessed.
When they met a little later in Lady Cantourne’s uncompromisingly solid and old-fashioned drawing-room, one may be certain that nothing was lost.
“My aunt tells me,” began Millicent at once, with that dégagé treatment of certain topics hitherto held sacred which obtains among young folks today, “that you know Loango.”
“Oh yes—I live there.”
“And you know Mr. Meredith?”
“Yes, and Mr. Oscard also.”
There was a little pause, while two politely smiling pairs of eyes probed each other.
“She knows something—how much?” was behind one pair of eyes.
“She cannot find out—I am not afraid of her,” behind the other.
And Lady Cantourne, the proverbial looker-on, slowly rubbed her white hands one over the other.
“Ah, yes,” said Millicent unblushingly—that was her strong point, blushing in the right place, but not in the wrong—“Mr. Oscard is associated with Mr. Meredith, is he not, in this harebrained scheme?”
“I believe they are together in it—the Simiacine, you mean?” said Jocelyn.
“What else could she mean?” reflected the looker-on.
“Yes—the Simiacine. Such a singular name, is it not? I always say they will ruin themselves suddenly. People always do, don’t they? But what do you think of it? I should like to know.”
“I think they certainly will make a fortune,” replied Jocelyn—and she noted the light in Millicent’s eyes with a sudden feeling of dislike—“unless the risks prove too great and they are forced to abandon it.”
“What risks?” asked Millicent, quite forgetting to modulate her voice.
“Well, of course, the Ogowe river is most horribly unhealthy, and there are other risks. The natives in the plains surrounding the Simiacine Plateau are antagonistic. Indeed, the Plateau was surrounded and quite besieged when we left Africa.”
It may have hurt Millicent, but it hurt Jocelyn more—for the smile had left her hearer’s face. She was off her guard, as she had been once before when Sir John was near, and Millicent’s face betrayed something which Jocelyn saw at once with a sick heart—something that Sir John knew from the morning when he had seen Millicent open two letters—something that Lady Cantourne had known all along.
“And was Mr. Meredith on the Plateau when it was besieged?” asked Millicent, with a drawn, crooked smile.
“Yes,” answered Jocelyn. She could not help seizing the poor little satisfaction of this punishment; but she felt all the while that it was nothing to the punishment she was bearing, and would bear all her life. There are few more contradictory things than the heart of a woman who really loves. For one man it is very tender; for the rest of the world it is the hardest heart on earth if it is called upon to defend the object of its love or the love itself.
“But,” cried Millicent, “of course something was done. They could never leave Mr. Meredith unprotected.”
“Yes,” answered Jocelyn quietly, “Mr. Oscard went up and rescued him. My brother heard yesterday that the relief had been effected.”
Millicent smiled again in her lighthearted way.
“That is all right,” she said. “What a good thing we did not know! Just think, auntie dear, what a lot of anxiety we have been spared!”
“In the height of the season, too!” said Jocelyn.
“Ye—es,” replied Millicent, rather doubtfully.
Lady Cantourne was puzzled. There was something going on which she did not understand. Within the sound of the pleasant conversation there was the cliquetis of the foil; behind the polite smile there was the gleam of steel. She was rather relieved to turn at this moment and see Sir John Meredith entering the room with his usual courtly bow. He always entered her drawing-room like that. Ah! that little secret of a mutual respect. Some people who are young now will wish, before they have grown old, that they had known it.
He shook hands with Lady Cantourne and with Millicent. Then he stood with a deferential half-bow, waiting for the introduction to the girl who was young enough to be his daughter—almost to be his granddaughter. There was something pathetic and yet proud in this old man’s uncompromising adherence to the lessons of his youth.
“Sir John Meredith—Miss Gordon.”
The beginning—the thin end of the wedge, as the homely saying has it—the end which we introduce almost every day of our lives, little suspecting to what it may broaden out.
“I had the pleasure of seeing you last night,” said Sir John at once, “at Lady Fitzmannering’s evening party, or ‘At Home,’ I believe we call them nowadays. Some of the guests read the invitation too much au pied de la lettre for my taste. They were so much at home that I, fearing to intrude, left rather early.”
“I believe the skirt-dancing frightened you away, Sir John,” said Millicent merrily.
“Even old birds, my dear young lady, may sometimes be alarmed by a scarecrow.”
“I missed you quite early in the evening,” put in Lady Cantourne, sternly refusing to laugh. She had not had an opportunity of seeing him since her conversation with Jocelyn, and the dangers of the situation were fully appreciated by such an experienced woman of the world.
“They began to clear the upper end of the room,” he explained, “and I assisted them in the most practical manner in my power.”
He was
