Chapter VI

The little incident, trivial in itself, damped the general ardour for roulette. After a dozen turns of the wheel, Lady Frances declared herself satisfied.

"Mrs. Milbanke has regenerated us--for the moment!" she cried. "I can't play roulette to-night. But our turn will come; Mrs. Milbanke. We will be revenged on you!"

Her shrewd, smiling glance passed rapidly over Clodagh's face.

Again the whole company laughed.

"Mrs. Milbanke is a feminine Sir Galahad!" said Luard. "By the way, Lady Frances, when is our irreproachable knight to honour Venice with his presence?"

He turned and looked banteringly at his hostess.

Lady Frances smiled.

"Oh, any day now," she returned. "But aren't you rather incorrigible?"

"So Sir Galahad thinks!" he retorted, unabashed. "Is he an acquaintance of yours, Mrs. Milbanke?"

Clodagh smiled uncertainly; and Lady Frances laughed.

"How ridiculous of you to expect Mrs. Milbanke to read your riddles!" she said sharply. "The person this very disrespectful young man is speaking of, Mrs. Milbanke, is Sir Walter Gore----"

"The most admirable Sir Walter Gore!" interjected Luard.

Lady Frances' sallow face flushed very slightly.

"--Sir Walter Gore," she went on, ignoring the interruption, "who is only twenty-nine--has been ten times round the world--and is imbued with the deepest contempt for all modern social things."

She laughed again, as she finished; but a fleeting change of expression had passed over her face.

Clodagh looked up smilingly.

"And where is the likeness to me?" she asked.

"Oh, you are both above mere human temptations, Mrs. Milbanke!" Luard broke in irrepressibly.

Lord Deerehurst, who had been listening to the conversation, lifted his eyeglass.

"But then Sir Walter Gore has been ten times round the world," he remarked in his thin, dry voice. "And this is Mrs. Milbanke's first visit to Venice."

Again they all laughed, and Clodagh coloured.

"You think my stoicism would not wear well?" she asked.

Deerehurst looked at her searchingly.

"Stoicism may be born of many characteristics," he said. "I am not in a position to say from what yours springs. But"--he lowered his voice.--"I do not think you are a natural stoic."

She laughed and glanced uneasily round the little company, already beginning to break up into groups of two and three.

Observing the look, Lady Frances turned to her tactfully. "Come, Lord Deerehurst!" she cried. "We are getting too serious. If you _must_ philosophise, take Mrs. Milbanke on to the balcony, where she will have something to distract her thoughts. For myself, I want to hear Valentine sing. Val!" she called. "Come to the piano and make some music! I'm surfeited with stringed instruments and Italian voices."

She moved across the salon; and Lord Deerehurst turned to Clodagh.

"May I follow our hostess's suggestion? May I talk philosophy on the balcony?"

She smiled. The slight strain, of which she had been conscious ever since the incident of the roulette, lifted suddenly, and her earlier sensation of elated excitement returned.

"Yes, if you like," she responded brightly. "The balcony sounds very tempting. And as for the philosophy, I can promise to listen--if I can't promise to understand."

She smiled afresh, and crossed the wide room, Deerehurst following closely.

As she passed the group of statuary and stepped through the open window, Serracauld struck a chord or two on the piano, and an instant later, his voice--a full strong voice, intensely passionate and youthful--drifted across the salon and out into the night.

At the first note Clodagh halted, surprised and enchanted by the sound; and sinking silently into one of the balcony chairs, rested one arm on the iron railing.

The music Serracauld sang was French, and possessed much of the distinction that marks that nation's art. The song was a hymn to life--and its indispensable coadjutors, youth and love; and it went with a peculiar lilt that stirred the blood and stimulated the fancy. He sang it as it should be sung--easily and arrogantly; for, as frequently happens with those who possess voices, he could express in music thoughts, ideas, and emotions that never crossed his own selfish, somewhat narrow soul.

Clodagh, staring down into the dark waters in an attitude of wrapt attention, drank in the song to its last note; and as the final vibration died away, she looked round at Deerehurst with an expression infinitely softened and enhanced.

"How beautiful!" she said. "Oh, how beautiful!"

Deerehurst, who had seated himself beside her, leant forward and rested his own arm upon the balcony railing.

"It is not the song that is beautiful, Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "but the thoughts it has wakened in you."

Clodagh looked at him in silent question. She was still under the spell of the music, and saw nothing to resent in his cold gaze.

"You were the instrument," he went on in the same lowered voice. "The notes were not played upon the piano, but upon your brain. Your brain is a network of sensitive strings, waiting to be played on by every factor in life--music, colour, sunshine, emotion----" His tone sank.

Clodagh glanced quickly at his tall, thin figure, seated so close to her own, and at the wax-like, inscrutable face showing through the dusk.

"You seem to know me better than I know myself," she said uncertainly.

He watched her intently for a moment; then he leant forward, his long, pale fingers toying with the ribbon of his eyeglass.

"I do know you better than you know yourself."

She gave a little embarrassed laugh.

"Then explain me to myself!"

Again he seemed to study her; then he leant back in his chair with a decisive movement.

"No!" he said--"no! Not now! In a year--or two--or even three, perhaps. But not now."

She laughed again; and unconsciously a note of relief underran her laugh--a relief that, by a natural sequence of emotion, brought a fresh reaction to the coquetry of an hour ago.

With a quick turn of the head, she looked up at him. "But how shall I find you in a year--or two--or three?"

She was distinctly conscious that the words held a challenge; but the thought was fraught with the new intoxication that the evening had created.

With a swift movement, he bent closer to her.

"The world is very small, Mrs. Milbanke--when one desires to make it so."

In the half light of the balcony, his pale eyes seemed to search hers.

Involuntarily she blushed, but her glance met his steadily enough.

"Not until one has been ten times round it!" she reminded him.

He laughed his thin, amused laugh; then suddenly he became grave again.

"Don't you feel," he said, "that when we desire a thing very greatly, our own will power may bend circumstances?"

Her eyes faltered, and her gaze moved to the gondolas flitting silently below them.

"I think I have given up desiring things greatly," she said in a low, uneven voice.

Deerehurst's eyelids narrowed.

"Would it be presumptuous to ask why?"

"No. Oh no!"

"But you will not throw light upon my darkness?"

She turned her head, and once more her gaze rested on his face.

"No," she said softly, "it isn't that. It is that I don't believe I could enlighten you--even if I would. I am a puzzle to myself."

"The deeper a riddle, the more tempting its solution."

Very quietly he drew still nearer, until his foot touched the hem of her skirt.

The action, more than the words, startled her. With a little laugh, she drew back into her seat.

"Perhaps it is no riddle after all!" she said quickly. "Perhaps it is the lack of human nature--the likeness to Mr. Luard's 'Sir Galahad.'"

She laughed again nervously. Then suddenly her own words suggested to her a new and less dangerous channel of talk.

"When is this wonderful person to be in Venice?" she asked. "I should like to see him."

But Lord Deerehurst had no intention of allowing another man's name to interfere with his pleasure.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he said earnestly, "may I ask you another question---a serious one?"

"Not till you've answered mine."

"But this is personal--personal to you and me. The other is not."

He bent over her chair; and, seemingly by accident, his hand brushed her sleeve.

"Mrs. Milbanke----"

But even as his thin voice articulated her name, a shadow fell across the lighted window behind them; and Serracauld, characteristically easy and nonchalant in his movements, stepped on to the balcony.

Clodagh turned with a short, faint laugh. The beating of her heart was uneven, and her face felt hot.

"Mr. Serracauld," she said impulsively, "when is Sir Walter Gore coming to Venice? I have been asking Lord Deerehurst, but he cannot--or will not tell me."

Deerehurst, who at his nephew's approach had drawn quietly back into his seat, looked up with perfect composure.

"Yes, Valentine," he said smoothly, "I believe Gore has been making an impression by proxy."

Serracauld laughed.

"Really!" he said. "How interesting! I shall look forward to the meeting in the flesh."

Again he laughed, as at something intensely amusing. And as Clodagh turned towards him doubtfully, she saw him shoot a swift, satirical glance at his uncle.

"Why?" she asked quickly--"why should our meeting be interesting?"

Once more a vague sense of antagonism assailed her--a vague distrust of this new atmosphere.

Serracauld answered at once in his light, ingratiating tone.

"For no reason, Mrs. Milbanke, that you can possibly cavil at!"

"But for what reason?" Her glance rested inquiringly on his face. "Do tell me. I hate things that I cannot understand."

Deerehurst smiled a little cynically.

"A very youthful sentiment!" he murmured. "The older one grows, the more one seeks the incomprehensible."

His eyes rested upon her with a fixed regard.

For a space she sat very still, attempting no rejoinder. Then, as if suddenly moved to decisive action, she rose and turned towards the lighted salon.

"It's very late," she said quickly. "I must think about getting home."

Serracauld stepped aside, and Deerehurst, who had risen with her, moved forward.

But with a swift gesture that ignored them both, she crossed the balcony and stepped through the open window.

After she had left them, the two men stood for a moment looking at each other; then, with an elaborately careless gesture, Lord Deerehurst raised his eyeglass and peered out across the dark canal.

"Rather a pleasant little gathering to-night!" he said casually. "Rose Bathurst looks particularly well."

Serracauld's lips parted; then pursed themselves together, while he cast one comprehensive glance at his uncle's stiff back.

"Oh yes!--yes! Quite!" he rejoined vaguely; then, very swiftly, he turned and hurried across the salon after Clodagh.

She was bidding her hostess good-night as he reached her side; and his attentive glance noted her heightened colour and her nervously alert manner.

"To-morrow night, then!" Lady Frances was saying; and he saw Clodagh nod and smile.

"To-morrow night!" she repeated. "Mr. Barnard, are you ready?"

As she looked round for her cavalier, Serracauld stepped softly to her side.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "you will not discard my uncle's gondola? He is waiting to know if we may convey you home."

She looked up at him with a faint suggestion of coldness and distrust. Then, across the silence of her indecision, the low notes of the Venetian night music broke forth again, as the musicians' gondola passed the Palazzo Ugochini on its way homeward. For one moment it seemed to sweep across the salon through the open windows; then it faded into the distance, as the boat passed on up the canal. At the sound, Clodagh's face involuntarily softened, her lips parted, and she smiled.

"Very well!" she acquiesced below her breath. "Tell Lord Deerehurst that he may take me home."