The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 20

“Well,” she said, “and what of Ronald, then? Do you think he is above making a scandal? You must know him very little!”

“On the other hand, it is my pretension that I know him very well!” I replied. “I must speak to Ronald first – not Ronald to me – that is all!”

“Then, please, go and speak to him at once!” she pleaded. “He is there – do you see? – at the upper end of the room, talking to that girl in pink.”

“And so lose this seat before I have told you my good news?” I exclaimed. “Catch me! And, besides, my dear one, think a little of me and my good news! I thought the bearer of good news was always welcome! I hoped he might be a little welcome for himself! Consider! I have but one friend; and let me stay by her! And there is only one thing I care to hear; and let me hear it!”

“O Anne,” she sighed, “if I did not love you, why should I be so uneasy? I am turned into a coward, dear! Think, if it were the other way round – if you were quite safe and I was in, O, such danger!”

She had no sooner said it than I was convicted of being a dullard. “God forgive me, dear!” I made haste to reply, “I never saw before that there were two sides to this!” And I told her my tale as briefly as I could, and rose to seek Ronald. “You see, my dear, you are obeyed,” I said.

She gave me a look that was a reward in itself; and as I turned away from her, with a strong sense of turning away from the sun, I carried that look in my bosom like a caress. The girl in pink was an arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be no doubt, from Mr. Ronald’s attitude, that he worshipped the very chair she sat on. But I was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a hen over a chicken.

“Excuse me for one moment, Mr. Gilchrist!” said I.

He started and span about in answer to my touch, and exhibited a face of inarticulate wonder.

“Yes!” I continued, “it is even myself! Pardon me for interrupting so agreeable a tête-à-tête, but you know, my good fellow, we owe a first duty to Mr. Robbie. It would never do to risk making a scene in the man’s drawing-room; so the first thing I had to attend to was to have you warned. The name I go by is Ducie, too, in case of accidents.”

“I – I say, you know!” cried Ronald. “Deuce take it, what are you doing here?”

“Hush, hush!” said I. “Not the place, my dear fellow – not the place. Come to my rooms, if you like, to-night after the party, or to-morrow in the morning, and we can talk it out over a segar. But here, you know, it really won’t do at all.”

Before he could collect his mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James’ Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; but I managed this interview with so much art that, while I was scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to keep Robbie beside me all the time, and to leave along with him when the ordeal was over. We were just walking away arm in arm, when I spied my friend the Major approaching, stiff as a ramrod and, as usual, obtrusively clean.

“O! there’s a man I want to know,” said I, taking the bull by the horns. “Won’t you introduce me to Major Chevenix?”

“At a word, my dear fellow,” said Robbie; and “Major!” he cried, “come here and let me present to you my friend Mr. Ducie, who desires the honour of your acquaintance.”

The Major flushed visibly, but otherwise preserved his composure. He bowed very low. “I’m not very sure,” he said: “I have an idea we have met before?”

“Informally,” I said, returning his bow; “and I have long looked forward to the pleasure of regularising our acquaintance.”

“You are very good, Mr. Ducie,” he returned. “Perhaps you could aid my memory a little? Where was it that I had the pleasure?”

“O, that would be telling tales out of school,” said I, with a laugh, “and before my lawyer, too!”

“I’ll wager,” broke in Mr. Robbie, “that, when you knew my client, Chevenix – the past of our friend Mr. Ducie is an obscure chapter full of horrid secrets – I’ll wager, now, you knew him as St. Ivey,” says he, nudging me violently.

“I think not, sir,” said the Major, with pinched lips.

“Well, I wish he may prove all right!” continued the lawyer, with certainly the worst-inspired jocularity in the world. “I know nothing by him! He may be a swell mobsman for me with his aliases. You must put your memory on the rack, Major, and when ye’ve remembered when and where ye’ve met him, be sure ye tell me.”

“I will not fail, sir,” said Chevenix.

“Seek to him!” cried Robbie, waving his hand as he departed.

The Major, as soon as we were alone, turned upon me his impassive countenance.

“Well,” he said, “you have courage.”

“It is undoubted as your honour, sir,” I returned, bowing.

“Did you expect to meet me, may I ask?” said he.

“You saw, at least, that I courted the presentation,” said I.

“And you were not afraid?” said Chevenix.

“I was perfectly at ease. I knew I was dealing with a gentleman. Be that your epitaph.”

“Well, there are some other people looking for you,” he said, “who will make no bones about the point of honour. The police, my dear sir, are simply agog about you.”

“And I think that that was coarse,” said I.

“You have seen Miss Gilchrist?” he inquired, changing the subject.

“With whom, I am led to understand, we are on a footing of rivalry?” I asked. “Yes, I have seen her.”

“And I was just seeking her,” he replied.

I was conscious of a certain thrill of temper; so, I suppose, was he. We looked each other up and down.

“The situation is original,” he resumed.

“Quite,” said I. “But let me tell you frankly you are blowing a cold coal. I owe you so much for your kindness to the prisoner Champdivers.”

“Meaning that the lady’s affections are more advantageously disposed of?” he asked, with a sneer. “Thank you, I am sure. And, since you have given me a lead, just hear a word of good advice in your turn. Is it fair, is it delicate, is it like a gentleman, to compromise the young lady by attentions which (as you know very well) can come to nothing?”

I was utterly unable to find words in answer.

“Excuse me if I cut this interview short,” he went on. “It seems to me doomed to come to nothing, and there is more attractive metal.”

“Yes,” I replied, “as you say, it cannot amount to much. You are impotent, bound hand and foot in honour. You know me to be a man falsely accused, and even if you did not know it, from your position as my rival you have only the chance to stand quite still or to be infamous.”

“I would not say that,” he returned, with another change of colour. “I may hear it once too often.”

With which he moved off straight for where Flora was sitting amidst her court of vapid youths, and I had no choice but to follow him, a bad second, and reading myself, as I went, a sharp lesson on the command of temper.

It is a strange thing how young men in their ’teens go down at the mere wind of the coming of men of twenty-five and upwards! The vapid ones fled without thought of resistance before the Major and me; a few dallied awhile in the neighbourhood – so to speak, with their fingers in their mouths – but presently these also followed the rout, and we remained face to face before Flora. There was a draught in that corner by the door; she had thrown her pelisse over her bare arms and neck, and the dark fur of the trimming set them off. She shone by contrast; the light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in her excited face. For the least fraction of a second she looked from one to the other of her pair of rival swains, and seemed to hesitate. Then she addressed Chevenix:

“You are coming to the Assembly, of course, Major Chevenix?” said she.

“I fear not; I fear I shall be otherwise engaged,” he replied. “Even the pleasure of dancing with you, Miss Flora, must give way to duty.”

For a while the talk ran harmlessly on the weather, and then branched off towards the war. It seemed to be by no one’s fault; it was in the air, and had to come.

“Good news from the scene of operations,” said the Major.