Leslie's Loyalty

Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and looked at the proud face, with its tightly drawn lips, and now brooding eyes.

"Yours is about the worst case I think I have ever met with, Eleanor," she said.

"Oh, no, it isn't," responded Lady Eleanor. "Only I'm not ashamed to admit how it is with me, and other women are. But you needn't be afraid on my account. I only wear my heart on my sleeve for you to peck at. I keep my secret from the rest of the world."

"Or think you do," said Lady Denby. "And how is it going to end?"

"God knows!" exclaimed Lady Eleanor, with an infinite and pathetic wistfulness. "Sometimes I wish I were dead, or he were – ."

"What?"

"Yes! I'd rather see him dead than the husband of another woman!"

"My dear Nell!"

"You are shocked. Well, you must be so. It's the truth. Sometimes I wake in the night from a dream that he has married, and that I am standing by and see him put the ring on, and I feel – ," she stopped, and laughed with a mixture of bitterness and self-scorn. "What weak, miserable fools we women are! There is not a man in the whole world worth one hundredth part of the suffering we undergo."

"Certainly Yorke Auchester does not!"

Lady Eleanor swung round on her with a kind of subdued fierceness.

"What have you to say against him? I thought he was a favorite of yours!"

"So he is; but I'm not blind to his faults – ."

"His faults! What are they?"

"He is selfish, for one thing – ."

"Selfish. He would give away his last penny – ."

"I dare say; he hates coppers – ."

"Would go to the end of the earth to save a friend. Is truth itself. And where is there a braver man than Yorke Auchester?"

Her voice softened and faltered as she spoke his name.

"Or a more foolish and infatuated girl than Eleanor Dallas," said her aunt. "There!" and she stroked the golden head which Eleanor had let fall on her hands; "you can't help it, I suppose, and we must make the best of it. I'll see that he has what he likes for luncheon. Thank Heaven, if we know nothing more about men, we know the nearest way to their hearts."

Lady Eleanor put out her hand to stop her aunt for a moment.

"I – I saw that woman this morning," she said, in a low voice.

"You mean Finetta?"

"Yes, she had come into the park to meet him, I believe, I saw them talking together. She is a beautiful woman – very."

"She is that."

"I don't wonder at his being – fond of her and liking to be with her."

"I hear they are seldom apart," said Lady Denby, gravely. "That ought to cure you, if anything would, Eleanor."

Lady Eleanor shook her head.

"It only makes it worse," she said, with her face hidden. "Jealousy doesn't kill love – ."

"But wounded pride should do so!"

"No, no! It's true I'm proud enough to the rest of the world, but it all goes, slips away from me when – when I am near him! Oh, dear! Why, this morning when I saw him my heart – ! And he looked up at me as if he had seen me only an hour or two ago! But there, what is the use of talking! I hope they will have some of these cutlets!"

Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head.

"It's a pity that Yorke does not know what is good for him. He could have lobster cutlets and '73 claret for the rest of his life, and all manner of good things, if he would only throw his handkerchief in the right direction."

Lady Eleanor smiled up at her almost defiantly.

"It is of no use your taunting me," she said. "You are right; if he threw his handkerchief, as you put it, I should be only too glad to go on my knees to pick it up."

A servant came to the door, with a card on a salver.

Lady Denby took it, and glanced at it.

"It is Mr. Ralph Duncombe," she said.

"I cannot see him this morning. Say that I am not at home."

Lady Denby signed to the footman to wait.

"Ought you not to see him?" she said in a low voice. "It may be important business."

"Oh, very well. Show Mr. Duncombe into the library."

"That's right," said Lady Denby, approvingly, "You can't afford to offend such a man as this Mr. Duncombe. There are not too many men who are willing to work for you for nothing. I suppose he has come about those mines?"

"I suppose so," assented Lady Eleanor, bitterly.

"I will go and see."

Ralph Duncombe had been a friend of Lady Eleanor's father. The late earl had been fond of dabbling in the city and had met the successful young merchant there and found him extremely useful. It had been chiefly owing to Ralph Duncombe's advice and counsel that the late earl had made the fifty thousand pounds which he had left to Lady Eleanor. He had done nothing for some years before his death without consulting the keen man of business, and Lady Eleanor had followed her father's example.

She would not have been a particularly rich woman with fifty thousand at three per cent., but Ralph Duncombe had invested it for her in such a way that it had brought in sometimes ten and fifteen. He had bought shares and sold them again at a big profit; had dealt with her money as if it had been his own, and had been as lucky with it. The greatest and latest piece of good fortune had only just turned up. He had purchased some land on the coast, calculating to dispose of it to a building company, but while negotiating with them discovered traces of copper; and it was on the cards that he had by one of those flukes which seemed to come so often to Ralph Duncombe, found a large fortune for her.

"How do you do, Mr. Duncombe?" she said. "What a shame that you should have to come all this way from the city."

"It does not take long by the Underground," he said, in his grave voice, as he shook hands; "and I have some important news for you."

"Yes," she said, and she motioned him to a chair.

As he sat down she noticed that he looked graver than usual, and that there was a tired and rather sad expression in his eyes.

"Is it bad news?" she said.

"Bad?" He looked at her with faint surprise.

"I thought you looked graver than usual, and rather disappointed," she explained.

He flushed slightly and forced a smile.

"We business men seldom look elated," he said, with something like a sigh. "Money making is not an exhilarating pursuit, Lady Eleanor."

"I should have thought otherwise," she said; "but I don't know much about it. I only know that it is very kind of you to take so much trouble over my affairs."

"Not at all. It comes natural to me," he said, with a slight smile. "I was your father's adviser – if I may put it so – for so long and so intimately that it seems a matter of course that I should continue to be his daughter's. But about this copper, Lady Eleanor. We were not mistaken; the indications are particularly distinct, and there is every reason to believe that the land contains a vast quantity."

"Yes," she said; "that is good news. I suppose it will make me very rich?"

He nodded.

"Yes, immensely so. The thing to decide now is how to work it. I have a plan which I should like you to consider," and he went on to explain it to her.

She listened not very attentively.

"I leave it all to you," she said, when he had finished. "I suppose you will think that is very cool of me; but I don't know what else I could do. That is, if you will undertake the business for me."

He nodded.

"I will do so, and not altogether disinterestedly, for I shall ask your permission to take some shares in the company."

"Why, yes, of course," she said at once. "I consider that it belongs as much to you as to me; you found it."

He shook his head, with a smile.

"Scarcely that," he said; "but I shall have an interest in it. We shall get to work at once, and I think I may say, positively, that you will be, as you put it, very rich, before many months are out."

"Very rich," she murmured; "thank you."

It was rather a strange way of accepting the information, but she was thinking of how little use the money would be if a certain person refused to share it with her.

Ralph Duncombe glanced at his watch and got up.

"You will stay to lunch?" she said…

"Thank you, Lady Eleanor, not this morning.

"I have to attend a board meeting, and shall be late as it is."

"I am sorry."

She gave him her hand, and as he held it she said, as if at a sudden thought:

"Did you – did you get those bills I asked you about?"

"Lord Auchester's?" he said, and he noticed that her hand quivered. "Yes, I bought them up." He looked at her gravely. "It cost rather a larger sum than I expected."

"You mean that he was very much in debt?" she said, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes.

"Yes, very much," he replied, laconically.

She bit her lip softly, and still evaded his keen gaze.

"Tell me," she said. "You know I do not understand such matters; but – but, supposing that you were to compel him to pay these bills, what would be the result?"

"You mean try to compel him?" he said, with a smile. "You cannot get water from a dry well, Lady Eleanor, and from what I hear, Lord Auchester is a very dry well. If you forced him to take up those bills, you would ruin him."

"Ruin him!"

"Yes. That means that you would make a kind of outcast of him. A man who cannot meet his engagements is dishonored; he would have to give up his clubs and leave London. I don't know where such men go now; to some corner of Spain, I believe. Any way, he would be ruined and thoroughly finished."

She drew a long breath.

"And I – and I could do that?" she said, in a very low voice.

"You could do that, as I hold the bills for you, certainly," he replied.

"Thank you," she said, with a laugh that sounded forced and unnatural; "I only wanted to know. I'm afraid you must think me sublimely ignorant."

"Not more so than a lady should be of business matters," he replied, politely.

There was a moment's pause. He took up his hat and gloves. Then, suddenly, Lady Eleanor said:

"Do you know a place called Portmaris, Mr. Duncombe?"

CHAPTER XIV.

"NOW, YORKE!"

The carefully brushed, exquisitely shining, and glossy hat – the city man's god, as it has been called – fell from his hands, and he flushed and then turned pale; but that, perhaps, was at his clumsiness. At any rate, whatever the cause, he was able to look Lady Eleanor steadily in the face when he recovered his hat.

"Portmaris?" he said, smoothing it with his sleeve. "Yes, I know it. It is a small fishing village on the west coast. Why do you ask?" and his keen eyes grew to her face.

"Oh, I only heard of it the other day," she said.

"A friend of mine, the Duke of Rothbury, has gone down there, and – ," she paused a moment – "and Lord Auchester has been there."

"Lord Auchester?" he said, and his brows knit thoughtfully. "It is a strange place for a man about town, like Lord Auchester, to stay at."

"He has been fishing."

"There is no fishing there," he remarked, and he put one glove on, and took it off again, the frown still on his face.

"He has been to see the duke. You may know that the duke and he are great friends. They are cousins."

He shook his head, with an impatience strange and unusual with him – the cool, self-possessed, city man.

"I know very little about such persons, Lady Eleanor," he said, gravely. "Your father, the late earl, was the only nobleman I ever knew, and – I don't mean to be offensive – I ever wanted to know."

Lady Eleanor looked at him with faint, well-bred surprise; then she smiled.

"If reports speak truly, you are likely to be a nobleman yourself some day, Mr. Duncombe. You have only to enter Parliament – ."

He shook his head by way of stopping her.

"I have no ambition in that direction, Lady Eleanor," he said, almost gloomily. "I am a man of business, and care nothing for titles. I was going to say and for little else; but I suppose that wouldn't be true. I do care for money; I've been bred to that. Is there anything else you would like to say to me?" he broke off abruptly.

His manner was so singular, so unlike his usual one, that Lady Eleanor was startled.

"Thank you, no," she said; "except – except that I should be glad if you could get any other bills or debts of Lord Auchester's."

He nodded.

"Certainly." He brushed his hat slowly, then added, "Excuse me, Lady Eleanor, but will you allow me to ask why you are purchasing – and at a heavy price – Lord Auchester's liabilities? I am aware that I have no right to ask you the question – ."

"Yes, you have," she said, quickly, and struggling with the color that would mount to her face. "You were my father's friend, and have been and are mine; and you have every right to ask such questions. But I find it difficult to answer. Well, Lord Auchester is a friend of mine, and I would rather that he owed me the money than a lot of Jews and people of that kind."

Ralph Duncombe inclined his head with an air of, "You know your own business better than any one else."

"Good-morning, Lady Eleanor," he said; "I will do as you wish. And please, say nothing about this mining scheme of ours."

He got outside the house, and drew a long breath.

The mere mention of the word "Portmaris" had stirred his heart to its depths, and recalled Leslie and his parting scene with her.

He might aspire to nobility, might he? What would be the good of a title to him, when the only title he longed for was that of Leslie Lisle's husband? And so this Lord Auchester had been at Portmaris. Had he seen Leslie? Had he spoken to her? It was not unlikely! Such men as this Lord Yorke Auchester would be sure to discover a beautiful girl like Leslie, and make acquaintance with her.

Ralph Duncombe spent a very bad half-hour on the Underground on his way back to the city; very bad!

Five minutes after the man of business had left Palace Gardens, Yorke, the man of pleasure, arrived there, and was welcomed as if he were the great Lama of Thibet.

"I haven't had time to change my habit, Yorke," said Lady Eleanor.

"You couldn't put on anything prettier," he said, with that fatal facility of his, and he looked at her admiringly.

Lady Eleanor never appeared to greater advantage than in the dark green habit, upon which Redfern had bestowed his most finished art.

"Come in to luncheon at once," she said; "it is the only way of stopping your compliments. Here is Aunt Denby in a complete quandary as to whether there is anything fit to eat. You know we women don't care what we get, but it is different with you men."

But the luncheon was perfect in its way. Clear soup, a fish pie, salmi of fowl, and – oh, wonderful cook! lobster cutlets; and the famous '73 claret.

Yorke did full justice to the good fare, and rattled away for the amusement of the two women. He talked of the opera, of the next meeting at Sandown, of anything and everything which would interest two women moving in the ultra-fashionable circles, and made himself so pleasant that Lady Denby – who always suspected, while she liked him – relaxed into a smile, and Lady Eleanor was beaming.

"Never get cutlets like these anywhere else," he said, helping himself to a second serve with a contented sigh.

"Not at Portmaris?" asked Lady Eleanor.

He held his fork aloft, and looked at her with sudden gravity.

"Eh! Oh, Portmaris. No. No lobster cutlets down there. I rather think they eat the lobsters raw."

"What an outlandish place it must be!" said Lady Eleanor. "I wonder how you could stay there, you and Dolph."

"Oh, anything for a change," he said, carelessly, but with his mind apparently fixed on his plate, at the bottom of which he could see Leslie's face as plainly as if she were standing before him.

The lunch was over at last. It had seemed interminable to Lady Eleanor, and Lady Denby had, with a half-audible murmur of an afternoon drive, taken herself away and left the coast clear.

"You want to smoke?" said Lady Eleanor. "Come into the conservatory. Aunt doesn't mind it there, as it kills the insects."

He lit a cigar, and lounged against the doorway, and she sank into a seat and absently picked the blossoms nearest to her.

"Now is the time," he thought, "to tell her everything," but at the moment he remembered the bracelet which the duke had given him for her, and he put his hand in his pocket and drew it out.

"By the way, Eleanor," he said, carelessly, "you had a birthday the other day."

"Yes, I think I had," she said, smiling up at him. "Do you remember it?"

"Well, I shouldn't, if it hadn't been for Dolph," he said, honestly. "Dolph always remembers, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"And so – so – ." He took the morocco case from his pocket and opened it. "And so – well, I know it isn't worth your acceptance, but if you care to take it, here's a trifle – Dolph gave me," he added, honestly and he held out the bracelet.

She took it, and her face brightened, brightened with a soft glow which made it look inexpressibly tender and grateful.

"How good of you! How pretty it is! And it is just the size, see," and she unbuttoned the habit sleeve and slipped the bracelet on. "How does it fasten?"

"Eh?" he said. "Oh, like this, I expect," and he closed the spring and fastened it over her slender, milk-white wrist, and the touch of his hand sent a thrill through her, though he performed the operation in a most business-like way.

"How very good of you!"

"Say, rather of Dolph," he said. "It was he who gave it to me for you."

"But it was you who gave it to me," she said, in a low voice.

"I told him you wouldn't care for it," he said. "You who have no end of presents."

"But none I value more than this," she said, her voice singing, so to speak. "I will always wear it."

"Don't," he said. "Better wear the bracelet that goes with your diamond set. That's more suitable to a rich person than this – though that's hard on Dolph, who chose it and paid for it, isn't it?"

She was silent a moment, then she said:

"That reminds me, Yorke. Do you know that I am likely to be richer even than you think?"

"Oh? Well, I'm very glad," he said, with friendly interest and pleasure. "What will you do with so much coin; roll in it?"

She sighed softly, and lifted her eyes to his for a moment, with a look that said, "I would like to give it to you, and you can roll in it, or fling it in the Thames, or play ducks and drakes with it, or anything." But he was not looking at her, and did not see the appeal of the soft brown eyes.

"There is one thing I can do with it," she said. "I can buy your horse, if you really mean selling it, Yorke. But you don't?"

"But I do," he said, quickly, and with a touch of red showing through his tan. "I'm going to cut down my establishment – big word 'establishment,' isn't it? – as low as it can be cut, and the horse has got to go."

"Then I will buy it," she said, her face flushing, and then going pale.

Why was he selling it? What was he going to do? Surely nothing rash; he was not going to marry. No! she drew a long breath – that was impossible. He couldn't marry with those debts hanging round his neck, and those awful bills which she held, unless he married an heiress, and in that case he would not want to sell his horse, an old and loving favorite.

"You?" he said. "Why should you buy it? You've got enough already. Besides, he's not altogether safe."

"Thank you," she said, laughing a little tremulously. "It is the first time my horsemanship has been called in question. I'm not afraid of Peter. Besides, I – I should like to have him."

"To put under a glass case?"

"Yes, that I might look at him and recall the many jolly rides we have had together. No, no one shall have Peter but me. You can't prevent my buying him, you know!"

"No," he said. "And I'd rather you had him than any one else. I should see him occasionally, and I think I could make him quiet enough for you. Perhaps," he laughed, "you might feel good-natured enough sometimes to lend him to a poor chap who can't afford a nag of his own."

"Yes," she said. "I could do that. Is there anything I wouldn't lend or give you, Yorke?" and her voice was almost inaudible.

He started and looked at his watch. How was he to tell this beautiful woman, whose eyes were melting with love, whose voice rang with it, that he had no love to return, that he had indeed given his whole heart to another woman? And yet, that was what he meant doing this morning!

"I – I must be off," he said, almost nervously.

She rose, and as she did so the bracelet, which he must have fastened insecurely, fell to the ground. He stooped and picked it up, and she held out her arm.

"That's a bad omen, isn't it?" she said, with a wistful smile.

"Oh, no," he replied, as lightly as he could. "That kind of thing only applies to rings; wedding ones in particular. Let's see, how does this clasp go, once more?"

She put her disengaged hand to show him, and their fingers met, touched and got entangled, and he laughed; but the laugh died away as he saw her lips quiver as if with pain, and her soft eyes fill with tears.

He got outside and took off his hat, and drew a long breath.

"I could as soon have struck her as told her," he muttered.

And that was how he was 'off with the old love' No. 1.

He went down to the club, and sauntered from reading-room to reception-room, and at last consented to play a game at billiards with a man with whom he had often played, and always at an advantage.

Yorke was good at most games of strength or skill, and the men, hearing that he was playing, dropped in and sat round to while away the tedious hour before dinner.

But that afternoon Yorke could not play a bit.

"Completely off color," remarked a young fellow, in tones of almost personal resentment. "Never saw such a thing, don't-yer-know. There! That's the second easy hazard he's missed, and bang goes my sovereign."

"And why on earth does he keep on smoking like that?" inquired another in an undertone. "Looks as if he were mooning about something. He can't be – be – ."

The first young fellow shook his head.

"No, Yorke Auchester doesn't drink, if that's what you mean; it isn't that, but hang me if I know what it is. Yorke!" he called out, "you can't play."

Yorke gave a little start in the middle of one of the reflective smiles.

"Eh? No. I'm making a fool of myself, I know."

"You must have been to bed early wherever you've been for the last week," suggested one of the men, and they were all surprised to see him flush, "like a great girl, by Jingo!"

"Yes, I have, and it hasn't agreed with me in a billiard sense," he said, good temperedly, as he put on his coat and sauntered out. He went to his chambers and dressed, and the faithful Fleming also noticed the singular fit of abstraction which had fallen upon his beloved master.

"Seems to have something on his mind," was his mental reflection. "And it doesn't look as if it was bills or anything unpleasant of that kind."

"Shall I wait up to-night, my lord?" he asked, as he put on the perfectly cut dress overcoat, and handed the speckless, flawless hat.

He had to put the question twice, and even then Yorke did not seem to catch the sense of it immediately.

"Eh? No, don't sit up; I may be late. And, by the way, I may be off to the country to-morrow morning, so have some things packed."

"Something up at that outlandish place he's been staying at," was Fleming's mental comment, and he watched his master go slowly down the stairs with the faint flicker of a smile on his handsome face.

Yorke dined at the club and for once seemed quite indifferent as to what he ate, and when the footman brought the wrong claret, took it without a word of reproach. Some of his friends watched him from an adjacent table, and shook their heads.

"Somebody's gone and died and left him a hatful of coin, or else he's won a big wager. Never saw Yorke Auchester go dreaming over his dinner in his life before," was the remark.

About nine o'clock he lit a cigar, and walked down to the Diadem.

The attendants, box-keepers, even the men in the orchestra knew him, and people pointed him out to each other as his stalwart figure made its way to his stall; and when Finetta sprang onto the stage in her dainty page's dress of scarlet and black satin, the man who always "knows everything" about the actors and actresses whispered to a country cousin, "That's Finetta. Look! You'll see her glance toward him and perhaps give a little nod. They say he's spent every penny of an enormous fortune in diamonds for her; got some of 'em on to-night," etc.