A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 2

"I – I cannot," she stammered, after a pause, during which she wondered distractedly how she could best explain her refusal so as to spare him unnecessary pain; "I am very sorry – I would, with pleasure, if I could."

"Thank you," he said, with a slight, grateful bow. "Well, I could hardly hope for the first, I suppose. But I may have the second? Here are the programmes," he added, fishing into a basketful of them that stood on the piano, and drawing two out; "let me put my name down for the second, and what more you can spare; may I?"

She took the card he gave her, opened it, looked at the little spaces which symbolised so much more than their own blank emptiness, looked up at him, and then – alas! She was a timid, tender, weakly creature when she was hurt, and she had not yet got over the effect of Mr. Kingston's harshness; and she had been crying too recently to be able to withstand the slightest provocation to cry.

She tried to speak, but her lip quivered, and a tear that had been slowly gathering fell with an audible pat upon the piano. He drew the card from her in a moment, and at the same time swept away any veil of decorous reticence that she might have wished to keep about her.

"What is the matter?" he asked, with gentle entreaty, which in him was not inconsistent with a most evident determination to find out. "I am not distressing you, asking you to dance with me, am I?"

"Oh, no – it is nothing! Only please don't ask me," she almost sobbed, struggling against the shame that she was bringing on herself, and knowing quite well that she would struggle in vain.

He watched her in silence for half a minute – not as Mr. Kingston had watched her, though with even a fiercer attentiveness, and then he said, very quietly,

"Why?"

But he had already guessed.

"Because – because – I have promised not to."

"You have promised Mr. Kingston?"

Scarlet with pain and mortification, in an agony of embarrassment, she sighed almost inaudibly,

"Yes."

"Not to dance with me? or merely not to dance waltzes?"

"Must I tell you?" she pleaded, looking up with appealing wet eyes into his hard and haughty face.

"Not unless you like, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think I understand perfectly."

"Oh, Mr. Dalrymple, I want to tell you about it, but I cannot. I am saying things already that I ought not to speak of."

"I don't think so," he replied quickly, suddenly softening until his voice was almost a caress, and set all her sensitive nerves thrilling like an Æolian harp when a strong wind blows over it. "It is in your nature to be honest, and to tell the truth. You are not afraid to tell the truth to me?"

"I would not tell you an untruth," she murmured, looking down; "but the truth – sometimes one must, sometimes one ought – to hide it. And I hoped you would not need to know about this."

"Why, how could I help knowing it? Did you think it likely I might by chance forget you were in the ball-room to-night?"

What she thought clearly "blazed itself in the heart's colours on her simple face." But she did not lift her eyes or speak.

"I am very glad I know," he continued, in a rather stern tone. "If you had done this to me, and never told me why – "

"I should have trusted to you to guess that it was not my fault, and to forgive me for it," the girl interposed, looking up at last with a flash in her soft eyes that, as well as her words, told him a great deal more than she had any idea of.

"It was really so?" he demanded eagerly. "It was not your own desire to disappoint me so terribly?"

"Oh, no."

"If you had been left to yourself you would have danced with me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Quite willingly?"

"You know I would!"

Mr. Dalrymple drew a long breath. It was rather a critical moment. But he was no boy, at the mercy of the wind and waves of his own emotions, and Rachel's evident weakness of self-control was an appeal to his strength that he was not the man to disregard. Still it was wonderful how actively during these last few minutes he had come to hate Mr. Kingston, whom he had never seen.

"I suppose," he said presently, "I must not ask the reason for this preposterous proceeding?"

"Do not," she pleaded gently. "There is no reason, really. It is but Mr. Kingston's whim."

"And are you determined to sacrifice me to Mr. Kingston's whim?"

She did not speak, and he repeated his query in a more imperious fashion.

"Are you really going to throw me over altogether, Miss Fetherstonhaugh? I only want to know."

She looked up at him piteously, and he softened at once.

"Tell me what I am to do," he said, in a low voice. "Do you wish me not to ask you for any dances? It is a horrible thing – it is enough to make me wish I had gone to Queensland on Monday, after all – but I will not bother you. Tell me, am I not to ask you at all?"

"If you please," she whispered with a quick sigh, full of despairing resignation. "I am very sorry, but it is right to do what Mr. Kingston wishes."

"That is not my view in this case. However, it is right for me to do what you wish. And I will, though it is very hard."

Here Rachel, feeling all her body like one great beating heart, moved away to the door, driven by a stern sense of social duty.

Her companion did not follow her, and she paused on the threshold, turned round, and then suddenly hurried back to him.

"Mr. Dalrymple," she said, putting out her hand with an impulsive gesture, "do not wish you had gone to Queensland instead of coming here to-night. If you do I shall be miserable!"

He seized her hand immediately, and stooping his tall head at the same moment, brushed it with his moustache. Then, looking up into her scared face, he said – like a man binding himself by some terrible oath:

"That I never will."

Once before in that room they had touched the point where not only mere acquaintance but warmest friendship ends. Then it had been to her a new, incomprehensible experience; now she could not help seeing the reason and the meaning of it, though, perhaps, not so clearly as he.

In a moment she had drawn her hand away, and like a bird frightened from its nest, had vanished out of his sight, leaving him – thoroughly aroused from his normal impassiveness – gazing at the empty doorway behind her.

When they met again, ten minutes afterwards, it was in the drawing-room, which was crowded with people; and through all the crush and noise, she was as acutely conscious of his presence as if he alone had been there.

She moved about with tremulous restlessness and downcast eyes; afraid to look at him – afraid he should look at her; paying her little civilities mechanically, and conducting herself generally, to her aunt's extreme annoyance, more like a bashful schoolgirl and a poor relation than ever.

Mr. Kingston, doing his best to fascinate Miss Hale, who stood beside him, giggling and simpering and twiddling her watch-chain, looked anxiously at his little sweetheart when she entered, thought he saw signs of his own handiwork in her disturbed and downcast face, called her to him, and until the great tea-dinner was over, and they all had to disperse to dress, compassed her with devout attentions, intended to assure her of his royal forgiveness and favour.

But he did not remove the prohibition, which made her more and more resentful as she continued to think about it, and less and less responsive to his ostentatious "kindness;" and he treated Mr. Dalrymple – when he condescended to acknowledge his presence at all – with a supercilious rudeness that Mr. Thornley, in conjugal confidence, declared to be "very bad form," and that prompted the gentle Lucilla to be "nicer" to the younger man than Rachel had ever seen her. He was so open in his hostility that it was generally noticed and talked of (and the cause of it more or less correctly surmised).