Thelma
Milan, was of elaborately carved wood inlaid with ivory and silver. Here
a _tete-a-tete_ tea was served for the two ladies, both of whom were
somewhat fatigued by the pleasures of the day. Lady Winsleigh declared
she must have some rest, or she would be quite unequal to the gaieties
of the approaching evening, and Thelma herself was not sorry to escape
for a little from her duties as hostess,--so the two remained together
for some time in earnest conversations and Lady Winsleigh then and there
confided to Thelma what she had heard reported concerning Sir Philip's
intimate acquaintance with the burlesque actress, Violet Vere. And they
were both so long absent that, after a while, Errington began to miss
his wife, and, growing impatient, went in search of her. He entered the
boudoir, and, to his surprise, found Lady Winsleigh there quite alone.
"Where is Thelma?" he demanded.
"She seems not very well--a slight headache or something of that
sort--and has gone to lie down," replied Lady Winsleigh, with a faint
trace of embarrassment in her manner. "I think the heat has been too
much for her."
"I'll go and see after her,"--and he turned promptly to leave the room.
"Sir Philip!" called Lady Winsleigh. He paused and looked back.
"Stay one moment," continued her ladyship softly. "I have been for a
long time so very anxious to say something to you in private. Please let
me speak now. You--you know"--here she cast down her lustrous
eyes--"before you went to Norway I--I was very foolish--"
"Pray do not recall it," he said with kindly gravity "_I_ have forgotten
it."
"That is so good of you!" and a flush of color warmed her delicate
cheeks. "For if you have forgotten, you have also forgiven?"
"Entirely!" answered Errington,--and touched by her plaintive,
self-reproachful manner and trembling voice, he went up to her and took
her hands in his own. "Don't think of the past, Clara! Perhaps I also
was to blame a little--I'm quite willing to think I was. Flirtation's a
dangerous amusement at best." He paused as he saw two bright tears on
her long, silky lashes, and in his heart felt a sort of remorse that he
had ever permitted himself to think badly of her. "We are the best of
friends now, Clara," he continued cheerfully, "and I hope we may always
remain so. You can't imagine how glad I am that you love my Thelma!"
"Who would not love her!" sighed Lady Winsleigh gently, as Sir Philip
released her hands from his warm clasp,--then raising her tearful eyes
to his she added wistfully, "You must take great care of her,
Philip--she is so sensitive,--I always fancy an unkind word would kill
her."
"She'll never hear one from me!" he returned, with so tender and earnest
a look on his face, that Lady Winsleigh's heart ached for jealousy. "I
must really go and see how she is. She's been exerting herself too much
to-day. Excuse me!" and with a courteous smile and bow he left the room
with a hurried and eager step.
Alone, Lady Winsleigh smiled bitterly. "Men are all alike!" she said
half aloud. "Who would think he was such a hypocrite? Fancy his dividing
his affection between two such contrasts as Thelma and Violet Vere!
However, there's no accounting for tastes. As for man's fidelity, I
wouldn't give a straw for it--and for his morality--!" She finished the
sentence with a scornful laugh, and left the boudoir to return to the
rest of the company.
Errington, meanwhile, knocked softly at the door of his wife's
bedroom--and receiving no answer, turned the handle noiselessly and went
in. Thelma lay on the bed, dressed as she was, her cheek resting on her
hand, and her face partially hidden. Her husband approached on tiptoe,
and lightly kissed her forehead. She did not stir,--she appeared to
sleep profoundly.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she's tired out, and no wonder, with all the
bustle and racket of these people! A good thing if she can rest a little
before the evening closes in."
And he stole quietly out of the room, and meeting Britta on the stairs
told her on no account to let her mistress be disturbed till it was time
for the illumination of the grounds. Britta promised,--Britta's eyes
were red--one would almost have fancied she had been crying. But Thelma
was not asleep--she had felt her husband's kiss,--her heart had beat as
quickly as the wing of a caged wild bird at his warm touch,--and now he
had gone she turned and pressed her lips passionately on the pillow
where his hand had leaned. Then she rose languidly from the bed, and,
walking slowly to the door, locked it against all comers. Presently she
began to pace the room up and down,--up and down,--her face was very
white and weary, and every now and then a shuddering sigh broke from her
lips.
"Can I believe it? Oh no!--I cannot--I will not!" she murmured. "There
must be some mistake--Clara has heard wrongly." She sighed again.
"Yet--if it is so,--he is not to blame--it is I--I who have failed to
please him. Where--how have I failed?"
A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped in
her walk to and fro.
"It cannot be true!" she said half aloud,--"it is altogether unlike him.
Though Clara says--and she has known him so long!--Clara says he loved
_her_ once--long before he saw me--my poor Philip!--he must have
suffered by that love!--perhaps that is why he thought life so wearisome
when he first came to the Altenfjord--ah! the Altenfjord!"
A choking sob rose in her throat--but she repressed it. "I must try not
to weary him," she continued softly--"I must have done so in some way,
or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard,--it is not for
me to ask him questions. I would not have him think that I mistrust him.
No--there is some fault in me--something he does not like, or he would
never go to--" She broke off and stretched out her hands with a sort of
wild appeal. "Oh, Philip! my darling!" she exclaimed in a sobbing
whisper. "I always knew I was not worthy of you--but I thought,--I hoped
my love would make amends for all my shortcomings!"
Tears rushed into her eyes, and she turned to a little arched recess,
shaded by velvet curtains--her oratory--where stood an exquisite white
marble statuette of the Virgin and Child. There she knelt for some
minutes, her face hidden in her hands, and when she rose she was quite
calm, though very pale. She freshened her face with cold water,
rearranged her disordered hair,--and then went downstairs, thereby
running into the arms of her husband who was coming up again to look, as
he said, at his "Sleeping Beauty."
"And here she is!" he exclaimed joyously. "Have you rested enough, my
pet?"
"Indeed, yes!" she answered gently. "I am ashamed so be so lazy. Have
you wanted me, Philip?"
"I always want you," he declared. "I am never happy without you."
She smiled and sighed. "You say that to please me," she said half
wistfully.
"I say it because it is true!" he asserted proudly, putting his arm
round her waist and escorting her in this manner down the great
staircase. "And you know it, you sweet witch! You're just in time to see
the lighting up of the grounds. There'll be a good view from the
picture-gallery--lots of the people have gone in there--you'd better
come too, for it's chilly outside."
She followed him obediently, and her reappearance among her guests was
hailed with enthusiasm,--Lady Winsleigh being particular effusive,
almost too much so.
"Your headache has quite gone, dearest, hasn't it?" she inquired
sweetly.
Thelma eyed her gravely. "I did not suffer from the headache, Clara,"
she said. "I was a little tired, but I am quite rested now."
Lady Winsleigh bit her lips rather vexedly, but said no more, and at
that moment exclamations of delight broke from all assembled at the
brilliant scene that suddenly flashed upon their eyes. Electricity, that
radiant sprite whose magic wand has lately been bent to the service of
man, had in less than a minute played such dazzling pranks in the
gardens that they resembled the fabled treasure-houses discovered by
Aladdin. Every tree glittered with sparkling clusters of red, blue, and
green light--every flower-bed was bordered with lines and circles of
harmless flame, and the fountains tossed up tall columns of amber rose,
and amethyst spray against the soft blue darkness of the sky, in which a
lustrous golden moon had just risen. The brilliancy of the illuminations
showed up several dark figures strolling in couples about the
grounds--romantic persons evidently, who were not to be persuaded to
come indoors, even for the music of the band, which just then burst
forth invitingly through the open windows of the picture-gallery.
Two of these pensive wanderers were Marcia Van Clupp and Lord Algernon
Masherville,--and Lord Algy was in a curiously sentimental frame of
mind, and weak withal, "_comme une petite queue d'agneau afflige_" He had
taken a good deal of soda and brandy for his bilious headache, and,
physically, he was much better,--but mentally he was not quite his
ordinary self. By this it must not be understood that he was at all
unsteadied by the potency of his medicinal tipple--he was simply in a
bland humor--that peculiar sort of humor which finds strange and mystic
beauty in everything, and contemplates the meanest trifles with emotions
of large benevolence. He was conversational too, and inclined to quote
poetry--this sort of susceptibleness often affects gentlemen after they
have had an excellent dinner flavored with the finest Burgundy. Lord
Algy was as mild, as tame, and as flabby as a sleeping jelly-fish,--and
in this inoffensive, almost tender mood of his, Marcia pounced upon him.
She looked ravishingly pretty in the moonlight, with a white wrap thrown
carelessly round her head and shoulders, and her bold, bird-like eyes
sparkling with excitement (for who that knows the pleasure of sports, is
not excited when the fox is nearly run to earth?), and she stood with
him beside one of the smaller illuminated fountains, raising her small
white hand every now and then to catch some of the rainbow drops, and
then with a laugh she would shake them off her little pearly nails into
the air again. Poor Masherville could not help gazing at her with a
lack-lustre admiration in his pale eyes,--and Marcia, calculating every
move in her own shrewd mind, saw it. She turned her head away with a
petulant yet coquettish movement.
"My patience!" she exclaimed; "yew _kin_ stare! Yew'll know me again
when yew see me,--say?"
"I should know you anywhere," declared Masherville, nervously fumbling
with the string of his eye-glass. "It's impossible to forget _your_
face, Miss Marcia!"
She was silent,--and kept that face turned from him so long that the
gentle little lord was surprised. He approached her more closely and
took her hand--the hand that had played with the drops in the fountain.
It was such an astonishingly small hand.--so very fragile-looking and
tiny, that he was almost for putting up his eye-glass to survey it, as
if it were a separate object in a museum. But the faintest pressure of
the delicate fingers he held startled him, and sent the most curious
thrill through his body--and when he spoke he was in such a flutter that
he scarcely knew what he was saying.
"Miss--Miss Marcia!" he stammered, "have--have I said--anything to--to
offend you?"
Very slowly, and with seeming reluctance, she turned her head towards
him, and--oh, thou mischievous Puck, that sometimes takest upon thee the
semblance of Eros, what skill is thine! . . . there were tears in her
eyes--real tears--bright, large tears that welled up and fell through
her long lashes in the most beautiful, touching, and becoming manner!
"And," thought Marcia to herself, "if I don't fetch him now, I never