Chapter XXVI: Carlton's "little Bill"

It was characteristic of Carlton Mackrell that he should turn up unexpectedly in the Park one afternoon, looking his usual unruffled self, and greet the little party sitting under a tree, as if he had only parted from them a few hours earlier.

No thought of the presentation of his "little bill" cooled the warmth of Gay's welcome; Lossie paid him the tribute of nearly fainting from excess of joy, while Chris, who knew his only real rival with Gay to be his own passion for steeplechasing, was cordiality itself.

It was one of the few sunny afternoons in a summer that was the very abomination of desolation, and Carlton, who looked very brown and well, was clearly glad to be back in the world--his world, that never enthused, or got excited, or asked questions, but took everything for granted in its own delightful way. He liked its indifference to the non-essentials of social intercourse, its tranquility and spacious forgiving humours, its freedom from conventions, and disdain for little things--yes, with all its charms and vices, English society alone had the art of life. Even Rensslaer, who was a cosmopolitan in his tastes and habits, had once admitted to Carlton that he had made his home in England because, as he frankly confessed, London had his heart.

"When I am here, I always feel that I am at the centre of things--right at the heart of all there's happening," he said. "You don't feel this in any other city in the world--but London is the whole world itself, squeezed into a few square miles."

Gay, if she were nervous, did not suffer it to appear, but chaffed Carlton mercilessly about his rheumatism, inquiring if he had found its cure at the Aix gaming tables, and in those _dolce far niente_ drives on the old Roman roads that she herself adored.

He laughed, looking very happy, and very handsome--indeed the quartette were in such high spirits, and of such conspicuous good looks, as to attract an unusual amount of attention, Gay heard one woman murmur in passing them, "three angels--and an Immortal," the latter with a glance at Chris that sent a pang to her heart.

Carlton was genuinely shocked at Chris's looks (for which Gay was almost as much responsible as his accident), but delighted to find that there was no understanding between the two. Daily during his stay abroad he had expected to hear the news of their engagement, and if nothing had happened in all these weeks, well, the presumption was, that nothing would.

It wanted a good week to the Horse Show; town was at its very best, and Gay, who was always restless now, gave her whole mind to frivolity, greatly to Lossie's delight. The four young people filled the days, and the greater part of their nights, with amusements of every kind, so that, as the Professor declared, Gay only used her house to sleep in, seldom to feed.

With two of the party happy, for Lossie was in triumphant beauty, and quite satisfied at the way things were going, and the other two playing up brilliantly, they made the gayest possible quartette, and more than once, either as host or guest, Rensslaer joined them, to Gay's manifest pleasure.

It was not surprising that Carlton quite wrongly attributed Gay's welcome change of front about trotting, to Rensslaer's influence, for although that sport was the one tabooed subject with them all, he knew from Tugwood, who had insisted on keeping him well posted, that she seldom took the trouble to see her horses run now.

But he was equally correct in thinking that her friendship with Rensslaer had developed a side of her character that up to now, no one had been aware of, and with some mortification realised, that neither he nor Chris had allowed for the spirituality that is in every woman worthy of the name, and that Rensslaer so fully recognised.

While just as original, Gay had wider sympathies, read more, thought more, and that she had a very genuine and even warm affection for Rensslaer, no one could doubt who saw them together. She displayed an eager pleasure when they met, that neither of the two younger men by any means evoked--it happened, therefore, that Carlton came to entirely misunderstand the position, be as certain that the man was in love with Gay (for a lover always thinks the whole world is in league to want what he wants), as he suspected Gay, out of sheer perversity, to fancy herself in love with Rensslaer.

With men of Carlton Mackrell's type and position, brains are never admitted, or if possessed, they are sedulously hidden--it would be bad form, make uncomfortable other men to use them, and he had never seriously considered their value till now, when he saw the mental hold that Rensslaer had taken on her. But the more complex a man is, the better he likes a woman to be purely normal, and like Chris, Carlton by no means approved of the change in Gay.

He thought of the sweet perfume of the wild hawthorn, of how the cultivated, double variety, beautiful in shape and colour though it may be, has none, and he missed the wildness and spontaneity, yes, and the wilfulness that he loved in Gay, and longed to have it back again.

It was curious with what jealous iteration in conversation between Carlton and Lossie, Rensslaer's name cropped up, and that the man should display such incredible blindness to the real position of affairs between Gay and Chris, appealed to Lossie's sense of humour. She only bided her time to undeceive him, and the opportunity came at Ranelagh on the Saturday preceding the opening of the Horse Show, when somehow the two couples had got separated, as often happened. It was a significant fact which seemed altogether to escape Carlton, that uneasy as Gay and Chris seemed to be when together, it was impossible to keep them apart.

Sitting under the trees, Carlton and Lossie talked trifles till, as was inevitable, Rensslaer's (to Carlton) abhorred personality intruded, and the reason of his influence over Gay was debated.

"I can't see his charm," said Carlton, who, like many other very handsome men, quite unconsciously exaggerated the power of good looks over women.

"He's got a mind," said Lossie significantly, "and that lasts longest in the long run."

"So has Gay," said Carlton, "and that is the _point d'appui_ between them. She could never put up with poor Hannen, who has but one idea in his head--horses."

"He has one other," she said quietly--"Gay. And Gay has only one--Chris."

A red flush showed under Carlton's dark skin, and he looked at Lossie sharply, suspecting her of playing her own game, but if there is one thing more than another that confounds a man, it is the purity of the outline of a woman's cheek, as opposed to the deep artifice and dissimulation of her soul.

"They are _à tort et à travers_!" he exclaimed. "It's only because there is no steeplechasing on, and Hannen is at a loose end, that he sticks it."

"She would marry him to-morrow if he would give up racing," said Lossie, "and he won't. Neither will give way--and there's the rub. And she's a fool," she added softly, "for a woman who loves, loves to submit."

"Gay won't," said Carlton, as he returned Lossie's gaze full. Good Heavens! how lovely she was, with her forget-me-not eyes, and silky masses of blue-black hair, framed in a wonderful hat and gown of royal purplish-blue chiffon, that would have killed most women. He wondered that Rensslaer had passed her by for Gay; for himself, of course, it was different--he knew Gay's good qualities so well, her disposition inside out.

"Gay has a will of her own," he said.

"And a heart," said Lossie significantly, "that runs away with her head. You see, Chris looks so ill, and you so--so provokingly _well_--" Her gaze lingered on his face warmly like a caress, and indeed he was very good to look at. "There's something awfully maternal about Gay--not to say 'sloppy'--wanting to help everyone, like silly Aunt Lavinia, you know. It makes you so cheap," she addedly rashly, and saw her mistake when Carlton, who liked Lavinia--as who did not?--frowned, and suggested that they should join the others.

They found them silently looking on at a game of polo--if there were a horse anywhere near, Chris gravitated naturally towards it--and for a while they discussed the players and the cattle.

"But Mr. Hannen will see better at Elsinore to-morrow," Gay said to Carlton a little nervously. Each day, each hour seemed to bring nearer to her the presentation of that "little bill," and there was a dangerous spark in his eye that foretold trouble in the near future. Indeed, as they stood quietly chatting about the wonders of Elsinore, Carlton suddenly realised that Lossie had told him the truth, and with a mad, hot rush of jealousy, that for the moment blinded him to all sense of honour, he inly swore that he would obtain Gay at all hazards, her love for Chris notwithstanding, using the steeplechase difficulty as a means of accomplishing his desires.

Lossie, reading him like a book, felt her heart sink. Yet, after all, would it not be better when he had put his fate to the touch, and realised once for all that Gay was not for him? He would take it badly--very badly. He would go away again, but some day he would come back--and even if he knew that she loved him, Lossie had not committed the one sin that to a man is unpardonable, the sin of boring him.