CHAPTER XVI.
THE FOOLISH NOTE
Yorke walked all the way from St. John's Wood to Bury Street, and it was not altogether a pleasant walk.
There is a popular parlor game called "Consequences," and, after a fashion, he was playing that game as he strode along smoking vigorously.
It is an easy and pleasant amusement running into debt; but there are consequences. It is also an easy and pleasant matter to make love to two women; but the consequences have to be reckoned with, and the reckoning, whether it come sooner or later, is a serious matter.
He had never loved Lady Eleanor, but he respected and liked her. He had certainly never loved Finetta, but he had liked her – liked her very much; and as he made his way through the silent streets his heart – it was by no means a hard one – was filled with pity and remorse.
"It was playing it very rough to go and tell her that I should have to cut her, that she wasn't fit company for me any longer, but what else could I do? I couldn't cut her without a word, without saying 'Good-by,'" he mused. "And how well she took it. No scene! no fuss! no reproaches!" It was well that he was unable to see Finetta at that moment; or perhaps it would have been better for him if he could. "She bore it like a brick. She is a brick! Most women of her class would have raised a duse of a row, and made it hot for me all round. Yes, Fin's behaved well. What a fool I have been! What fools we men all are! Why did I want to strike up a friendship with Finetta of the Diadem? And yet that's scarcely the fair way to look at it, for in a way she's as good as I am. And she'd have gone a hundred miles to do me a service; yes, and have shared her last penny with me. I know that! Poor Fin! Thank Heaven, it's over! I'll begin a new life from to-night, please God. A life devoted to my darling. My darling! Heaven! It scarcely seems true that she is mine. I wonder whether she is asleep. Perhaps she is looking up at these small stars, and – . Yes, I hope she is thinking of me. Jove! It's like having a guardian angel all to one's self to be loved by such a woman as Leslie. I wish I were more worthy of her. I wish I'd met her years ago! What a time I seem to have wasted!"
He had forgotten Finetta long before he reached home, and was wrapped up heart and soul in Leslie, and looking with impatience toward the hour when he could return to Portmaris.
He would have gone back the next day, but the duke had asked him to do one or two things for him; and he, Yorke, was anxious to pay some bills.
He went out after breakfast, and his first call was at a grimy office in a dark and dingy court leading out of Lombard Street. This was the parlor of a certain money-lending spider called Levison, and Lord Yorke was not the first fly that had found its way into it.
Mr. Levison was a grimy man with a hooked nose and thick lips, an unctuous smile, and decidedly Israelite accent. He was dressed in the height of fashion, wore a scarlet necktie in which shone an enormous diamond horse-shoe pin, a thick gold cable albert across his waistcoat, and innumerable rings upon his fingers, which called unkind attention to the fact that the latter were dirty.
This young gentleman greeted Lord Yorke with a mixture of respect and familiarity which made Yorke – and most other persons – feel an almost irresistible longing to kick him.
"And 'ow's your lordship?" said Mr. Levison, with a smile that stretched his flexible lips from ear to ear. "It ain't often we see you in the city, my lord; more's the pity for the city!" And he laughed and rubbed his hands. "What can I have the pleasure of doin' for your lordship? A little accommodation, I s'pose, eh?"
Yorke shook his head.
"Thanks, no, Mr. Levison," he said.
Mr. Levison appeared to be surprised.
"No? Oh, come now, my lord! Not want a little money? You're joking!"
"Strange as it may seem, I am serious," said Yorke as pleasantly as he could. "I don't want any money; in fact, I've come to take up that bill for two hundred and fifty pounds."
And he took out his pocket-book, in which were lying snugly the bank-notes for which he had cashed the duke's check.
Now, it is generally and not erroneously supposed that a Jew is always ready and glad to receive money; but Mr. Levison, singular to relate, looked neither ready nor glad. He stared at Yorke with widely opened eyes, and his face grew first red and then pale.
"You don't mean to say that you want to pay off that two hundred and fifty, my lord?" he said at last and in a tone almost of dismay.
"Startles you, doesn't it?" said Yorke, with a smile, for the Jew's consternation amused him. "It is rather an unexpected and extraordinary proceeding on my part, I'll admit; but – . Get the bill, Levison," and he began to separate the notes.
The Jew gazed at them, and then up at the handsome, careless face, and lastly at the ground.
"Look here, my lord," he said, thickly. "There really ain't any neshesity for you to go and inconvenience yourself, there ain't, indeed! Besides," he had turned to the grimy desk and consulted a grimy account book, "the bill ain't due! There's no call to pay it for some time yet."
"I know, at least I thought so," said Yorke, carelessly; "but I've got some money, and I thought I'd like to clear off something of what I owe you. Why!" and he laughed, "you don't seem inclined to take it. What's the matter? You haven't – " his face grew grave, "you haven't parted with the bills to any one else, Levison?"
Mr. Levison's oily face grew almost pale – say yellow.
"What! Me go and part with the bills of a customer like you! Not me, my lord! 'Tain't likely! I know better what's due to a swell like your lordship."
"Very well, then," said Yorke. "Take my money, and let me have it, please."
"Yesh, yesh, certainly. If your lordship insists; but upon my sacred honor, I'd rather lend you another two-fifty than – . Well, well!" And he went to a safe and fumbled in his pocket.
"Tut, tut!" he exclaimed. "Blessed if I haven't left my keys at my brother's. Excuse me half a minute, will you, my lord? 'Ave a glass of sherry and a smoke while you're waiting – ."
"No, no, thanks," said Yorke, who had once been prevailed upon to taste Mr. Levison's sherry, and had smelled the cigars while Mr. Levison had been smoking them. "Look sharp, my cab is waiting."
"Not more than 'arf a minute," said Mr. Levison, and he darted out, down the street, and full pelt into Messrs. Rawlings and Duncombe.
Ralph Duncombe, cool, grave, collected, a contrast to the flurried Israelite, looked up from his writing-table.
"Mishter Dunkombe, sir!" gasped Levison. "Here's Lord Horchester come to take up that bill of two-fifty. Wonderful, ain't it? Let's have it sharp. Moses! I wouldn't have him know I'd sold it to you for twice the money, and he 'arf suspects something a'ready."
Ralph Duncombe looked down at the letter he was writing; finished it, as if he had scarcely heard, then drew a book toward him, looked at it, and said:
"The bill isn't due. Why should Lord Auchester want to pay money before it is wanted?"
"'Ow do I know? Mad, p'raps! Anyhow, he does!"
Ralph Duncombe thought a moment, then he pushed the book from him, and looked straight at the anxious face before him.
"He cannot have the bill," he said.
Levison gasped.
"What?"
"He cannot have it. It suits me to stick by it till it is due."
"Oh, Mishter Dunkombe, sir! What's the meaning of that? What am I to say to him?"
"A mere whim on my part – perhaps," said Ralph Duncombe, coolly, impassively. "What are you to say? Say anything. Offer to lend him more money. I will take any bill he gives you. Good-morning."
He struck the gong standing at his elbow, and Levison, feeling too bewildered to expostulate or argue, was shown out.
He went back slowly, wiping the perspiration from his face. If it were known that he had parted with Lord Auchester's bills he would probably get a bad name with the other 'swells,' and lose half of them as customers; his business would be ruined!
He forced a grin as he entered the office, and threw up his hands with a beautiful gesture of amazement.
"Heresh a go, my lord!" he exclaimed. "Brother's gone off to see a client in the country, and took them confounded keys of mine with him. But there, it don't matter for a day or two, does it? I'll send the bill, or call on your lordship – ."
Yorke put his pocket-book back.
"Very well," he said. "Mind, I want to pay the money – while I've got it. You see?"
The Jew grinned.
"I see; before it melts; eh, my lord? But there, as I said, why pay at all? Why not let me lend you – ."
Yorke shook his head and laughed.
"No, thanks, Mr. Levison. I don't mean to trouble you in that way again, if I can help it. Good-morning." And with a pleasant nod he went out of the grimy parlor, leaving the spider staring after him with unfeigned surprise.
"Don't want to borrow any more money!" he gasped. "Why, what in the name of Moses has come to him. He – he must be going off his 'ead!"
Yorke dismissed the little incident from his mind, guessing nothing of its significance, or the effect it would have on his future, and had himself driven to Bond Street.
He had commenced the morning by doing his duty – or trying to do it – and now he was going to reward himself by buying a present for Leslie.
He had pondered over what he should get, and had at first, naturally, thought of a ring; but he had remembered that she could not wear it without attracting notice and question, and had decided on a locket.
The man showed him some, and Yorke selected a plain one with the initial 'Y' prettily worked in bas-relief.
While he was paying for it, the shopman, who knew him quite well, brought forward a tray of diamond ornaments.
"The newest designs, my lord," he said.
Yorke shook his head, but even as he did so Finetta flashed across his mind. He looked at the bundle of notes; he had plenty of money; she had behaved remarkably well; she deserved a present, a parting gift; he would give her one.
He knew Finetta's passion for diamonds, and comforted himself with the reflection – a wrong one, as we know – that they would console her for the loss of him.
He was not long in choosing – not half as long as he had been in selecting Leslie's simple locket – and purchased a pendant. It cost him a hundred and thirty pounds.
"Shall I send them, my lord?" asked the man.
"No," said York. "I'll take 'em. Put them up, singly, in a box. I'm going to send them through the post."
The man inclosed them in a couple of wooden boxes, and bowed Lord Auchester out.
York went home, and straight to a drawer in which he kept odd things, and after some amount of rummaging found a carte de visite portrait of himself. He sat down, lit a cigar, and, as neatly as he could, cut out the head of the portrait and fitted it in the locket; wrote on a slip of paper, "From Yorke," and laid them aside.
Then he took a sheet of paper, and dashed off in the charming scrawl which boys acquire at Eton – and never lose – the following note:
"Dear Fin. – Will you accept the inclosed and wear it for the sender's sake, and in remembrance of the many delightful times we have spent together? I thought of you nearly all the way home last night – it was awfully late! – and shall never forget how good you have always been to me. Think of me sometimes when you wear this trifle, and don't think too unkindly!"
"Yours,
"Yorke."
It was a foolish note. But he would be a wise man who could write a wise one under such circumstances. Of course, a wise one wouldn't have written at all; but Yorke was not famous for prudence.
He laid this note beside the beautiful diamond pendant, wrapped, like the locket, in tissue paper, and was putting them in their respective boxes when Fleming came in.
"Lord Vinson, my lord," he said.
Yorke looked up with a shade of annoyance on his face.
"Oh – . Ask Lord Vinson to wait a moment," he said, hurriedly. "There's a midday post for the country, isn't there?"
"Yes, my lord," said Fleming. "Can I help your lordship?" for Yorke was hunting about for string and sealing wax.
"No! Yes. Here, wrap these boxes up in thickish paper, and seal the string. Mind! This, No. 1, goes in this one, and that, No. 2, in that! Understand?"
"Yes, my lord," said Fleming, and no doubt he thought he did. But when he brought them back from the side table at which he had been packing them, and Lord Yorke asked him which was No. 1, Fleming, the usually careful and correct, handed him No. 2!
And so it happened that when, a few minutes later, Fleming walked off with them to the post-office, the locket with the portrait, but with Finetta's letter, was directed to Finetta, and the diamond pendant to Leslie!
CHAPTER XVII.
A WORD OF WARNING
To Leslie the days seemed to go by like a dream during Yorke's absence. She thought of him every hour, but she had yet scarcely realized all that had happened to her.
If Francis Lisle had not been utterly unlike the ordinary run of parents, he would not have failed to see the change that had come over her; but he was too absorbed in his painting to notice the difference; and, indeed, if Leslie had appeared at breakfast in a domino and mask, or sat during the meal with an umbrella up, he would very likely have failed to see anything extraordinary in the occurrence; and it rather suited him than otherwise that Leslie should sit beside him perfectly silent, with her hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on vacancy, with a dreamy smile on her lips.
But if Francis Lisle was blind, the duke was not.
His keen eyes noted the change in the expression of the lovely face, the soft light of a newly born joy in the gray eyes, and he guessed the cause.
"Like the rest!" he thought, with the bitter cynicism produced by his pain. "Like the rest! Well, it will afford me a little amusement; it will be a petite comedie played for my special benefit."
And yet at times, when he was free from pain, and he looked up at Leslie as she stood beside his chair, he felt doubtful and uncertain as to the accuracy of his judgment of her.
"She has the eyes of an angel," he muttered, when they were together one morning, the second after Yorke's departure for London. "One would say that they were the clear windows of a soul as pure as a child's."
His muttering was almost audible, and Leslie, awakened by it from a dream, bent down to him, and asked:
"What did you say, Mr. Temple?"
"I was saying – and thinking – that you are very good-natured to keep a crusty, irritable invalid company on such a delightful morning."
"Did you say all that?" she said, with a soft laugh.
"Well, if I didn't say it, I thought it," he responded. "You must find it dull work, but you are used to sacrificing yourself for others, are you not?" and he glanced at the painter who was at work at a little distance on the beach.
"It is not much of a sacrifice to stay with those one likes," she said, half absently.
The duke looked up at her sharply, and yet with a touch of color on his face.
"Thank you. I am to take it that you rather like me than otherwise, Miss Leslie?"
She blushed, and eyed him with sweet gravity.
"I should be very ungrateful if I did not," she said. And mentally she added, "And how could I help liking you; you are his friend?"
"I see," he said. "Well, it is very kind of you to keep me company. I should have missed my cousin – the duke – very much, if you had not been here. I am afraid mine is dull society after his, and that you miss the pleasant drives and sails."
"They were very pleasant, yes," she admitted, a little confusedly.
How hard it was that she should be obliged to deceive this kind-hearted friend of Yorke's, and how she longed for the time when he and her father should know her and Yorke's blissful secrets, when all concealment should be at an end, and her great happiness proclaimed. And yet it was sweet, this secret of theirs; it seemed to make their love more precious and sacred.
"Yes," said the duke. "Yorke is capital company. He is a great favorite wherever he goes."
"Yes," she murmured.
"He's so light-hearted," went on the duke. "And light-hearted people are extremely rare nowadays; but after all it isn't very much to his credit; I mean that it is easy to be joyous when you are young, in perfect health, and are – ," he paused a second, "a duke."
"Are dukes so much happier than other people?" she said, with a faint smile.
He winced. She had unconsciously struck home.
"No," he said, laconically. "Most of those I know are very much less happy than the rest of mankind, but it is different with the Duke of Rothbury. He is, as I say, young and in splendid health – ," his lips moved and he sighed cynically, "but if he weren't he would still be very popular and always welcome everywhere."
"Why?" said Leslie, looking at him with her guileless eyes.
He met their glance for a moment, then lowered his keen, suspicious ones.
"Is it acting?" he asked himself, and he gnawed at his lip.
"Why? Because he is a duke. If he were old and ugly, and – and twisted as I am, he would still be run after by all sorts and conditions of men – and women," he added, but in a lower voice, as if he were half ashamed of his cynicism.
Leslie understood, and her face flushed for a moment; but it was not with guilt, but the indignation of a pure-hearted girl.
"You mean that they – women – would pretend to like him because of his rank?" she said, quietly, but with gentle gravity.
"That's what I meant," he assented, eyeing her attentively. "There isn't a woman in the world whose heart doesn't leap at the thought of becoming a duchess."
"It is not true!" she said, her eyes flashing down at him with purest indignation. "It is – but you are only speaking in jest, Mr. Temple," and she smiled at the warmth she had been hurried into.
He looked hard at her.
"I am not jesting," he said; "but stating the solemn, shameful fact."
She gazed down at him almost pityingly.
"Ah, you do not know women at all," she said. "No," with a shake of her head, as he opened his lips. "You may know a great many, and they may be very great ladies, and a few of them may be as worldly as you say they are, but not many. I will not believe that."
He fingered his chin with restless fingers, and looked from right to left.
"If she is not acting then – then she is on the brink of a great misery," he thought. "If I could only believe her!"
"You mean that it would make no difference to you whether a man were a duke or not?" he said.
Her face went rather pale.
"Yes, it would make a difference," she said in a low voice. "I would rather not make the acquaintance of a duke, or any one so far above me in rank; and there are thousands of women who feel the same."
"Oh," he says, curtly. "I never was fortunate enough to meet any. Seeing that that is your feeling, it was very kind of you to honor me – I mean my cousin," he corrected himself sharply, "with your friendship, Miss Leslie," and he smiled.
Leslie's cheek burned, and she turned her face from his keen eyes.
"An actress," he muttered. "And yet I'll give her a word of warning, though she doesn't deserve it."
"Did the duke happen to say when he was coming back, Miss Leslie?"
"No," she said. "He said that he might be two or three days."
He laughed.
"I shouldn't be surprised if Portmaris never saw him again."
He saw Leslie start slightly, then a faint smile flashed over her face, a smile of perfect faith. Yorke not come back! She remembered his last word to her. I shall count every moment while I'm away from you, dearest, every moment till I am back with you.
"My cousin is rather erratic," said the duke, casually and indifferently. "He is a very nice fellow, good-hearted and the rest of it; but – well, a little fickle; at least, that's the character the ladies give him."
"Fickle," she said, smiling still.
"Y-es," he said, languidly. "What's that song in 'The Grand Duchess,' 'A butterfly flits from flower to flower?' One mustn't blame the butterfly, you know. 'It's its nature to,' as Dr. Watts says; and, like the butterfly, Yorke is what is called very susceptible. He is always falling in love – ."
She moved slightly, and the smile died away from her lips; but the clear eyes met his steadily, unflinchingly.
"And, fortunately, falling out of it again. He's like the man in the play who was in the habit of proposing to some woman every day; and if she accepted him he rode off, and she saw him no more, and if she refused him he asked her to be a sister, an aunt, or something of that kind, and rode off just as easily."
She opened her lips slowly.
"I thought you were a friend of the Duke of Rothbury's, Mr. Temple?" she said, in a very low voice.
The duke flushed.
"Eh? Oh, I see. You think it very base of me to speak ill of him behind his back?"
"That's what I meant," she assented, gravely.
"Oh, but the world wouldn't consider that I had spoken at all ill of him."
"The world!" she said. "How wicked and heartless it must be, this world of yours, Mr. Temple!"
"It is," he said, curtly. "As heartless as a flint."
"Or as the Duke of Rothbury, if he were what you have painted him," she said very softly.
"You don't believe me, then?" he asked, looking up at her from under his thick brows.
She shook her head.
"Not the very least!" she said, actually smiling.
"You forget that I have known him all his life, and that you have only known him five minutes!"
She still smiled.
"But in five minutes one may know – ." She stopped, and her face flushed, and the tears arose to her eyes. "No, I don't believe it," she said, her voice tremulous. "There may be some men who are as false and heartless as you say, but not the Duke of Rothbury."
He looked at her gravely, almost pityingly.
"Don't be too sure of that, Miss Leslie!" he said, with a touch of warning in his tone. "He is a good fellow, a charming companion, but – ." He was stopped by the expression of pain which shone in her eyes.
"Oh, please let us talk of something else!" she said, quickly. "See, here is the postman."
"I hope he has brought my medicine," said the duke. But the postman, tugging at his cap, handed a small parcel to Leslie.
"For me!" she said, with surprise. "Why, what can it be? Are you sure it is for me and not papa? It is like one of the boxes they send the colors in."
"A sample of a new scent or pearl powder," said the duke, leaning back languidly.
"Why should they send it to me?" she said, laughingly.
She tore off the outer paper as she spoke, and with the pleasant excitement which is always produced by the receipt of a parcel whose contents are unknown, she opened the little wooden box.
The duke heard an exclamation, a cry of amazement, of admiration, of delight, and looked up sharply.
"Is it scent or pearl powder?" he asked, with an amused smile.
She looked at him as if she scarcely heard him. Her eyes were shining, her lips apart.
"It is neither," she said, and without another word, with the little box fast clasped in her hand, ran toward the house.