Chapter XI

Clodagh's mood was inexplicable even to herself as she entered the hotel, ran upstairs to her own room, and began to dress for dinner.

She changed her dress with an almost feverish haste, giving herself no time for thought; and then, scarcely waiting to take a final look into the mirror, left the room and hurried down into the hall. There she encountered Barnard.

"I have just been speaking to your husband," he said, greeting her with a smile. "He has been lured into attending some secret conclave of Italian scientists. He asked me to make his excuses to you."

Clodagh's glance fell.

"Oh!" she said with a curious little inflection of the voice.

"Of course he knew that you were going out to-night?"

"Oh yes! Of course!" She still kept her lashes lowered.

Barnard smiled.

"Mrs. Milbanke," he exclaimed in a cheerful voice, "suppose we have a gay evening! Lord Deerehurst has asked me to dine with him and Serracauld at the 'Abbati.' Let's form an even party! The old man will be absolutely charmed; and you have never dined at a restaurant. Say I may arrange it!"

For a moment longer Clodagh studied the ground; then very quickly she raised her eyes, and in their depths Barnard read a new expression.

"After all," she said tentatively, "why shouldn't we take what comes our way?"

He extended his hands.

"Why, indeed? Let me spread the good news?"

Again she let her lashes droop.

"Very well!" she said--"very well! Say that I want to enjoy myself."

The dignified and placid serenity of Venice had been intruded upon that season by the establishment of a fashionable dining-place, which, under the name of the Abbati Restaurant, had taken up its position in a beautiful old house on one of the narrower waterways.

Its distance from Clodagh's hotel was short; and the journey thither--taken in Lord Deerehurst's gondola, in company with the old peer, Serracauld, and Barnard--occupied but a few minutes. Clodagh's first impression, on gliding up the still, dark waterway and stepping out upon the time-worn garden steps, was one of delight. And as she stood for a moment in the shadow of the ancient wall, above which the tree-tops rose, casting black reflections into the water that ran beneath them, she was conscious of the subtle touch of the warm night wind upon her face; of the subtle poetry in the scent of unseen flowers; of the subtle invitation conveyed by the long row of lighted windows, seen through a screen of magnolias.

She had momentarily forgotten her companions, when Deerehurst--the last to leave the gondola--stepped softly to her side.

"This appeals to you?" he said.

She started slightly at his unexpected nearness; then, with a quick impetuosity, she responded to his question.

"I think it is exquisite," she said. "The light through the trees suggests such wonderful, mysterious things."

He smiled under cover of the darkness.

"It suggests an enchanted banquet. Let us find the presiding genius!"

He laid his fingers lightly on her arm and guided her up the long, dim garden.

Followed by Serracauld and Barnard, they traversed the shadowy pathways and emerged upon an open space of lawn that fronted the house.

Three or four of the private rooms were already occupied; and with the faint streams of light that poured from their open windows, came the pleasant murmuring of talk and laughter.

As the little party stepped into the radius of this light, a stately personage came forward deferentially; and, recognising Deerehurst, made a profound bow.

The old nobleman nodded amiably, as to an acquaintance of long standing, and, drawing the man aside, addressed him in French.

The explanation was brief, and almost at once Deerehurst turned back to his companions.

"Come, Mrs. Milbanke!" he said. "Our friend Abbati proves amenable to persuasion. He will give us his prettiest room--though we are unexpected guests."

Clodagh stepped forward with eager curiosity.

"I never thought a restaurant could be like this," she said.

"Very few of them are, Mrs. Milbanke," murmured Barnard, close behind her. "The usual restaurant is an ostentatious place of white enamel, palms, and lights, where a hundred tongues are vainly endeavouring to drown a band. This little corner will scarcely outlive another season. It's too perfect--too quiet to find favour with the crowd. It was opened under the patronage--rather, at the suggestion--of Prince Menof, a sybarite millionaire temporarily out of sorts with Paris. But now Paris smiles once more; Menof has wearied of Venice; and poor Abbati begins to tremble."

Clodagh looked round.

"But could anything so exquisite be a failure?"

"Easily, my dear lady! People like to eat their expensive dinners where others can comment on their extravagance! It's a very vulgar world!"

The three men laughed; and Clodagh, slightly distressed, slightly puzzled, stepped through the wide hall to the room that Deerehurst indicated.

It was a small chamber, long and narrow in shape. The walls were panelled in faded brocade, and the lights were shrouded in silk of some soft hue; the floor was covered with a carpet in which wreathed roses formed the chief design; and the furniture consisted of one oval table, four beautiful old chairs, and a couple of ancient French mirrors. As Deerehurst stepped forward to relieve Clodagh of her cloak, four waiters entered noiselessly; and almost immediately dinner was served.

It was a dinner such as Prince Menof would have delighted in. There was nothing tedious, nothing monotonous in the six or seven courses that comprised its menu; each stimulated and gratified the appetite, without a hint of satiety. It was an Epicurean feast. And it was interesting to study the varying ways in which the guests responded to its appeal.

Barnard--placid man-of-the-world, indulgent connoisseur of all the luxuries--openly lingered over the delights of the meal; Serracauld ate quickly and almost greedily, as many men of slight build, and thin, sensual faces do eat; Deerehurst alone toyed with his food, giving serious attention to nothing beyond the dry toast with which he was kept supplied; while Clodagh--young enough and healthy enough to have an appetite that needed no tempting--frankly enjoyed her dinner, without at all comprehending its excellence.

During the first portion of the meal, conversation was fitful and impersonal; but as the waiters left the table to carry in one of the last dishes, the tone of the intercourse underwent a change. Deerehurst turned to Clodagh with a sudden gesture of concern and intimacy.

"I see you do not endorse my choice of wine!" he said in a gently solicitous voice.

She looked up with slight confusion; then looked down at her untouched glass, in which the champagne bubbles were rapidly subsiding.

"I--I never drink champagne," she said a little diffidently.

"Oh, Mrs. Milbanke! And my poor uncle has been sacking the Abbati cellars for this particular vintage!" Serracauld glanced up quickly and almost reproachfully.

Barnard laughed, as he blissfully drained his own glass.

"You are really very unkind, Mrs. Milbanke," he murmured. "You make one feel such a deplorable worldling."

But Deerehurst looked round towards a waiter who was re-entering the room.

"Bring this lady another glass and some more champagne!" he said.

Clodagh turned to him sharply and apprehensively. But he touched her wrist with his finger-tips.

"Please!" he said in his thin, high-bred voice--"please! I want you to taste this wine. I generally have some difficulty in getting it outside my own house."

His pale, far-seeing eyes rested on her face; and it seemed to her excited fancy that their glance supplemented his words. That, as plainly as eyes could speak, they added the suggestion that some day she might honour that house with her presence. The idea confused her. She turned away from him in slight uneasiness; and at the same moment one of the waiters filled her long Venetian glass with the light golden wine.

"To please me!" Deerehurst murmured again--"to please me!"

She looked round, confused and still embarrassed; gave one unsteady, yielding laugh; then lifted the glass.

"If--if I must----" she said deprecatingly.

Barnard and Serracauld smiled, and Deerehurst raised his own glass.

"To the next occasion upon which you consent to be my guest!" he said with a profound and impressive bow.

On the surface, this incident seems scarcely worth recording; yet for Clodagh it marked an epoch--an epoch not evolved through yielding to her host's persuasions, not evolved through drinking a single glass of unfamiliar wine; but evolved through the fact that one item in the sum of her prejudices had gone down before that potent fetish, the dread of appearing conspicuous.

With her action, a fleeting shadow of self-distrust fell across her mind; but she swept it aside, as she had previously swept the memory of her interview with Gore. Deep within her lay the specious knowledge that, for her, this bright existence was only transitory--that somewhere behind the lights and music and laughter lay her own individual groove, to which she must return like a modern Cinderella, when the enchanted interlude of brilliant days was ended. And in this knowledge lay the secret of her greed for joy. Certain of the monotony to come, she caught passionately at every proffered pleasure.

Ten o'clock had struck before the little party left the restaurant; and although she had drunk no more champagne, and had refused the liqueurs that had been served with coffee, her eyes were excitedly bright, as she stepped from the gondola at the steps of the Palazzo Ugochini.

Mounting the marble stairs with Deerehurst close behind her, she was filled with an exhilarating sense of confidence in herself--of defiance towards the world at large. The memory of the afternoon, when she had stood on the dark terrace and listened to Gore's contemptuous voice, had left her--or remained only as a spur to her enthusiasm.

The animation--the zest for pleasure--was plainly visible in her eyes, as she entered the salon, and went forward towards her hostess. And Lady Frances Hope, looking round at sound of her guest's names, saw this peculiar expression with a stirring of curiosity.

"Where have you all been?" she asked, as she took Clodagh's hand.

Barnard laughed.

"We are shocking truants!" he said gaily. "We have been dining at the 'Abbati.'"

She looked at him quickly.

"All four of you?" she asked shrewdly.

He smiled.

"You have a suspicious mind, Frances! Yes; all four of us."

Lady Frances laughed.

"No," she said. "I never harbour suspicions. It is Mrs. Milbanke's air of having just discovered some delicious secret that is always prompting me to curiosity."

"How do you manage to look so triumphant?" She turned again to Clodagh with a long, puzzled glance. "I wish you would impart the secret."

Clodagh's bright eyes met hers.

"My father used to say that the secret of happiness is never to look beyond the present hour."

"A philosopher!" murmured Deerehurst.

"I should say a bold man." Barnard looked from the old nobleman to his hostess.

But almost as he spoke, the name of Sir Walter Gore was announced, and Lady Frances looked sharply towards the door.

With a quiet, unembarrassed bearing, Gore crossed the salon.

As he approached the little group, Lady Frances stepped towards him with outstretched hands.

"How nice of you!" she said softly. "I began to fear you had forgotten about to-night."

He took her hand calmly.

"But I had promised to come," he said simply.

And at the words, his eyes turned involuntarily towards Clodagh.

"Good evening, Mrs. Milbanke!" he added in the same level voice.

At his glance and his words, Clodagh's expression changed. The vague excitement of the past hours seemed suddenly to focus itself. She realised abruptly that she had not yet vindicated her right to the joy of life. With exaggerated difference she bent her head in acknowledgment of his greeting; and almost immediately turned to Deerehurst.

"Lord Deerehurst!" she said, very softly and distinctly, "I want you to do me a favour to-night! I want you to teach me to play roulette!"

It was her declaration of war--the moment towards which she had unconsciously been tending ever since the interview of the afternoon. She knew it instantly the words had left her lips--knew it by the quick surprise in Barnard's eyes, the sharp curiosity in Lady Frances Hope's, the veiled triumph in Deerehurst's, and the cold disapprobation in Sir Walter Gore's. Without another glance she turned away and walked slowly forward across the salon, to where a couple of dozen people were grouped about the roulette-table.

As she moved deliberately forward, many heads were turned in her direction, but she was heedless and almost unobservant of the interest she evoked. Her heart was beating fast, she was rejoicing recklessly in her vindicated independence.

Deerehurst overtook her, as she halted by the roulette-table. And she was conscious of his presence without looking round.

"Will you stake for me?" she said in a quick undertone. "You were lucky the other night."

He stepped forward, smiling with a cold touch of wisdom, and took the coin she handed to him.

"What! A convert!" cried Luard, who was again officiating at the game. "Luck to you, Mrs. Milbanke!"

He gave a pleasant laugh, as her coin touched the table, and a moment later set the ball spinning.

Clodagh waited, holding her breath. The ball slackened speed--hesitated over the gaily painted board--and finally dropped into its place. There was a general laugh of excitement; the little crowd pressed closer to the table, and she saw her coin swept into Luard's hands.

The incident was eventful. Quite suddenly the colour leaped into her face and her eyes blazed. In total unconsciousness of self, she stepped forward to the table.

Deerehurst, closely watchful of her, moved to her side.

"Shall I stake again?" he asked in a whisper.

But she did not turn her head.

"No!--no!" she cried. "I'll stake for myself."

Her voice sounded distant and absorbed. It seemed in that brief moment that she had forgotten her companion and herself.

Thrice she staked, and thrice lost; but the losses whetted her desires. She played boldly, with a certain reckless grace born of complete unconsciousness. At last fortune favoured her, and she won. Deerehurst, still standing close beside her, saw the expression of her face, saw the careless--the almost inconsequent--air with which she accepted her spoils; and, noting both, he touched her arm.

"You are a true gambler!" he said very softly. "You care nothing for gain or loss. You play for the play's sake!"

And Clodagh, with her mind absorbed and her eyes on the roulette-board, gave a quick, high-pitched, unthinking laugh.