Thelma
And he rubbed his fat hands, on which twinkled two or three large
diamond rings. "But we shall be charmed if you will join us!"
"Thanks, not this evening," returned Sir Francis. "It's rather too late.
I should not have intruded upon you at this hour--but I thought you
might possibly like this paragraph for the _Snake_."
And he held out with a careless air the paper on which he had scribbled
but a few minutes previously. Mr. Snawley-Grubbs smiled,--and fixed a
pair of elegant gold-rimmed eye-glasses on his inflamed crimson nose.
"I must tell you, though," he observed, before reading, "that it is too
late for this week, at any rate. We've gone to press already."
"Never mind!" returned Sir Francis indifferently. "Next week will do as
well."
And he furtively watched Mr. Snawley-Grubbs while he perused the
pencilled scrawl. That gentleman, however, as Editor and Proprietor of
the _Snake_--a new, but highly successful weekly "society" journal, was
far too dignified and self-important to allow his countenance to betray
his feelings. He merely remarked, as he folded up the little slip very
carefully.
"Very smart! very smart, indeed! Authentic, of course?"
Sir Francis drew himself up haughtily. "You doubt my word?"
"Oh dear, no!" declared Mr. Snawley-Grubbs hastily, venturing to lay a
soothing hand on Sir Francis's shoulder. "Your position, and all that
sort of thing--Naturally you _must_ be able to secure correct
information. You can't help it! I assure you the _Snake_ is infinitely
obliged to you for a great many well-written and socially exciting
paragraphs. Only, you see, I myself should never have thought that so
extreme a follower of the exploded old doctrine of noblesse oblige, as
Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, would have started on such a new line of
action at all. But, of course, we are all mortal!" And he shook his
round thick head with leering sagacity. "Well!" he continued after a
pause. "This shall go in without fail next week, I promise you."
"You can send me a hundred copies of the issue," said Sir Francis,
taking up his hat to go. "I suppose you're not afraid of an action for
libel?"
Mr. Snawley-Grubbs laughed--nay, he roared,--the idea seemed so
exquisitely suited to his sense of humor.
"Afraid? My dear fellow, there's nothing I should like better! It would
establish the _Snake_, and make my fortune! I would even go to prison
with pleasure. Prison, for a first-class misdemeanant, as I should most
probably be termed, is perfectly endurable." He laughed again, and
escorted Sir Francis to the street-door, where he shook hands heartily.
"You are sure you won't come upstairs and join us? No? Ah, I see you
have a cab waiting. Good-night, good-night!"
And the Snawley-Grubbs door being closed upon him, Sir Francis
re-entered his cab, and was driven straight to his bachelor lodgings in
Piccadilly. He was in a better humor with himself now,--though he was
still angrily conscious of a smart throbbing across the eyes, where
Thelma's ringed hand had struck him. He found a brief note from Lady
Winsleigh awaiting him. It ran as follows:--
"You're playing a losing game this time,--she will believe nothing
without proofs--and even then it will be difficult. You had better drop
the pursuit, I fancy. For once a woman's reputation will escape you!"
He smiled bitterly as he read these last words.
"Not while a society paper exists!" he said to himself. "As long as
there are editors willing to accept the word of a responsible man of
position, for any report, the chastest Diana that ever lived shall not
escape calumny! She wants proofs, does she? She shall have them--by
Jove! she shall!"
And instead of going to bed, he went off to a bijou villa in St. John's
Wood,--an elegantly appointed little place, which he rented and
maintained,--and where the popular personage known as Violet Vere,
basked in the very lap of luxury.
Meanwhile, Thelma paced up and down her own boudoir, into which she had
escaped through the sliding panel which had baffled her admirer. Her
whole frame trembled as she thought of the indignity to which she had
been subjected during her brief unconsciousness,--her face burned with
bitter shame,--she felt as if she were somehow poisonously infected by
those hateful kisses of Lennox,--all her womanly and wifely instincts
were outraged. Her first impulse was to tell her husband everything the
instant he returned. It was she who had rung the bell which had startled
Sir Francis, and she was surprised that her summons was not answered.
She rang again, and Britta appeared.
"I wanted Morris," said Thelma quickly.
"He thought it was the drawing-room bell," responded Britta meekly, for
her "Froeken" looked very angry. "I saw him in the hall just now, letting
out Sir Francis Lennox."
"Has he gone?" demanded Thelma eagerly.
Britta's wonder increased. "Yes, Froeken!"
Thelma caught her arm. "Tell Morris never, never to let him inside the
house again--_never_!" and her blue eyes flashed wrathfully. "He is a
wicked man, Britta! You do not know how wicked he is!"
"Oh yes, I do!" and Britta regarded her mistress very steadfastly. "I
know quite well! But, then, I must not speak! If I dared, I could tell
you some strange things, dear Froeken--but you will not hear me. You know
you do not wish me to talk about your grand new friends, Froeken, but--"
she paused timidly.
"Oh, Britta, dear!" said Thelma affectionately taking her hand. "You
know they are not so much my friends as the friends of Sir Philip,--and
for this reason I must never listen to anything against them. Do you not
see? Of course their ways seem strange to us--but, then, life in London
is so different to life in Norway,--and we cannot all at once
understand--" she broke off, sighing a little. Then she resumed--"Now
you will give Morris my message, Britta--and then come to me in my
bedroom--I am tired, and Philip said I was not to wait up for him."
Britta departed, and Thelma went rather slowly up-stairs. It was now
nearly midnight, and she felt languid and weary. Her reflections began
to take a new turn. Suppose she told her husband all that had occurred,
he would most certainly go to Sir Francis and punish him in some
way--there might then be a quarrel in which Philip might suffer--and all
sorts of evil consequences would perhaps result from her want of
reticence. If, on the other hand, she said nothing, and simply refused
to receive Lennox, would not her husband think such conduct on her part
strange? She puzzled over these questions till her head ached--and
finally resolved to keep her own counsel for the present,--after what
had happened. Sir Francis would most probably not intrude himself again
into her presence. "I will ask Mrs. Lorimer what is best to do," she
thought. "She is old and wise, and she will know."
That night, as she laid her head on her pillow, and Britta threw the
warm _eidredon_ over her, she shivered a little and asked--
"Is it not very cold, Britta?"
"Very!" responded her little maid. "And it is beginning to snow."
Thelma looked wistful. "It is all snow and darkness now at the
Altenfjord," she said.
Britta smiled. "Yes, indeed, Froeken! We are better off here than there."
"Perhaps!" replied Thelma a little musingly, and then she settled
herself as though to sleep.
Britta kissed her hand, and retired noiselessly. When she had gone,
Thelma opened her eyes and lay broad awake looking at the flicker of
rosy light flung on the ceiling from the little suspended lamp in her
oratory. All snow and darkness at the Altenfjord! How strange the
picture seemed! She thought of her mother's sepulchre,--how cold and
dreary it must be,--she could see in fancy the long pendent icicles
fringing the entrance to the sea-king's tomb,--the spot where she and
Philip had first met,--she could almost hear the slow, sullen plash of
the black Fjord against the shore. Her maiden life in Norway--her school
days at Arles,--these were now like dreams,--dreams that had passed away
long, long ago. The whole tenor of her existence had changed,--she was a
wife,--she was soon to be a mother,--and with this near future of new
and sacred joy before her, why did she to-night so persistently look
backward to the past?
As she lay quiet, watching the glimmering light upon the wall, it seemed
as though her room were suddenly filled with shadowy forms,--she saw her
mother's sweet, sad, suffering face,--then her father's sturdy figure
and fine, frank features,--then came the flitting shape of the hapless
Sigurd, whose plaintive voice she almost imagined she could hear,--and
feeling that she was growing foolishly nervous, she closed her eyes, and
tried to sleep. In vain,--her mind began to work on a far more
unpleasing train of thought. Why did not Philip return? Where was he? As
though some mocking devil had answered her, the words, "In the arms of
Violet Vere!" as uttered by Sir Francis Lennox, recurred to her.
Overcome by her restlessness, she started up,--she determined to get out
of bed, and put on her dressing-gown and read,--when her quick ears
caught the sound of steps coming up the stair-case. She recognized her
husband's firm tread, and understood that he was followed by Neville,
whose sleeping-apartment was on the floor above. She listened
attentively--they were talking together in low tones on the landing
outside her door.
"I think it would be much better to make a clean breast of it," said Sir
Philip. "She will have to know some day."
"Your wife? For God's sake, don't tell her!" Neville's voice replied.
"Such a disgraceful--" Here his words sank to a whisper, and Thelma
could not distinguish them. Another minute, and her husband entered with
soft precaution, fearing to awake her--she stretched out her arms to
welcome him, and he hastened to her with an exclamation of tenderness
and pleasure.
"My darling! Not asleep yet?"
She smiled,--but there was something very piteous in her smile, had the
dim light enabled him to perceive it.
"No, not yet, Philip! And yet I think I have been dreaming of--the
Altenfjord."
"Ah! it must be cold there now," he answered lightly. "It's cold enough
here, in all conscience. To-night there is a bitter east wind, and snow
is falling."
She heard this account of the weather with almost morbid interest. Her
thoughts instantly betook themselves again to Norway, and dwelt there.
To the last,--before her aching eyes closed in the slumber she so sorely
needed,--she seemed to be carried away in fancy to a weird stretch of
gloom-enveloped landscape where she stood entirely alone, vaguely
wondering at the dreary scene. "How strange it seems!" she murmured
almost aloud. "All snow and darkness at the Altenfjord!"
CHAPTER XXV.
"Le temps ou nous nous sommes aimes n'a guere dure, jeune fille;
il a passe comme un coup de vent!"
_Old Breton Ballad._
The next morning dawned, cold and dismal. A dense yellow fog hung over
the metropolis like a pall--the street lamps were lighted, but their
flare scarcely illumined the thoroughfares, and the chill of the
snow-burdened air penetrated into the warmest rooms, and made itself
felt even by the side of the brightest fires. Sir Philip woke with an
uncomfortable sense of headache and depression, and grumbled,--as surely
every Englishman has a right to grumble, at the uncompromising
wretchedness of his country's winter climate. His humor was not improved
when a telegram arrived before breakfast, summoning him in haste to a
dull town in one of the Midland counties, on pressing business connected
with his candidature for Parliament.
"What a bore!" he exclaimed, showing the missive to his wife. "I _must_