Mr. Kingston tried to assume a light and airy manner, but his badinage had a menacing tone that was very chilling.
Rachel, strange to say, did not blush at all; she quietly excused herself on the plea that she must go and arrange her dishevelled costume, and (having no private bedroom to-night) went a long way down the garden to a retired harbour for half an hour's meditation.
CHAPTER III.
"WHERE THERE WAS NEVER NEED OF VOWS."
When Rachel came back to the house it was nearly five o'clock.
There was to be a great high tea at six, for which no dressing was required, in place of the ordinary dinner; and as she did not feel inclined to meet the crowd of company that was assembling in the drawing-room sooner than was necessary – to tell the truth, she had been crying, and her eyes were red – she returned by a back way to the ball-room, which she knew would be to all intents and purposes, empty.
As an excuse for doing so she carried in her arms some long wreaths of spiræa which she had discovered on a bush at the bottom of the garden, with which she intended to relieve the masses of box and laurestinus that made the groundwork of her decorations.
Lightly flitting up a stone-flagged passage at the rear of the house, she suddenly came upon Mr. Dalrymple. He emerged from the door of the laundry, which had been assigned to him for sleeping quarters, just as she was passing it.
"Oh!" she cried sharply, as if he had been a ghost; and then she caught her breath, and dropped her eyes, and blushed her deepest blush, which was by no means the conventional mode of salutation, but more than satisfied the man who did not know until this moment how eagerly he had looked for a welcome from her.
"How do you do?" he said, clothing the common formula with a new significance, and holding her hand in a strong grasp; "I was wondering where you were, and beginning to dread all kinds of disasters. Where are you going? May I carry these for you?"
He saw by this time the traces of her recent tears, and the cheerful cordiality of his greeting subsided to a rather stern but very tender earnestness.
Silently he lifted the white wreaths from her arm, and began to saunter beside her in the direction of the ball-room, much as he had led her away into the conservatory on that memorable night, which was only a week, but seemed a year ago.
All the time she was thinking of Mr. Kingston's prohibition, and dutifully desiring to obey him; but she had no power in her to do more.
They passed through the servants' offices, meeting only Lucilla's maid, who was in a ferment of excitement with so many ladies to attend to, and had not a glance to spare for them; they heard voices and footsteps all around them as they entered the house; but they reached the ball-room unperceived and unmolested, and found themselves alone.
The great room, with its windows draped and garlanded, was dim and silent; the gardener's steps stood in the middle ready for the lighting of the lamps; nothing but this remained to be done, and no one came in to disturb them.
For ten minutes they devoted themselves to business. Mr. Dalrymple mounted the steps, and wove the spiræa into whatever green clusters looked too thin or too dark; he touched up certain devices that seemed to him to lack stability; he straightened some flags that were hanging awry; and Rachel stood below and offered humble suggestions.
When they had done, and had picked up a few fallen leaves and petals, they stood and looked round them to judge of the general effect.
"It is very pretty," said Mr. Dalrymple; "and it makes a capital ball-room. I have not seen a better floor anywhere."
"It was laid down on purpose for dancing," said Rachel, who knew she ought now to be making her appearance elsewhere, yet lingered because he did.
"Are you fond of dancing?" he asked abruptly.
"Yes," she said; "very."
"Will you give me your first waltz to-night?"
He was leaning an elbow on the piano, near which he stood, and looking down on her with that gentle but imperious inquiry in his eyes, which made her feel as if she had taken a solemn affidavit to tell the truth.
"I – I cannot," she stammered, after a pause, during which she wondered distractedly how she could best explain her refusal so as to spare him unnecessary pain; "I am very sorry – I would, with pleasure, if I could."
"Thank you," he said, with a slight, grateful bow. "Well, I could hardly hope for the first, I suppose. But I may have the second? Here are the programmes," he added, fishing into a basketful of them that stood on the piano, and drawing two out; "let me put my name down for the second, and what more you can spare; may I?"
She took the card he gave her, opened it, looked at the little spaces which symbolised so much more than their own blank emptiness, looked up at him, and then – alas! She was a timid, tender, weakly creature when she was hurt, and she had not yet got over the effect of Mr. Kingston's harshness; and she had been crying too recently to be able to withstand the slightest provocation to cry.
She tried to speak, but her lip quivered, and a tear that had been slowly gathering fell with an audible pat upon the piano. He drew the card from her in a moment, and at the same time swept away any veil of decorous reticence that she might have wished to keep about her.
"What is the matter?" he asked, with gentle entreaty, which in him was not inconsistent with a most evident determination to find out. "I am not distressing you, asking you to dance with me, am I?"
"Oh, no – it is nothing! Only please don't ask me," she almost sobbed, struggling against the shame that she was bringing on herself, and knowing quite well that she would struggle in vain.
He watched her in silence for half a minute – not as Mr. Kingston had watched her, though with even a fiercer attentiveness, and then he said, very quietly,
"Why?"
But he had already guessed.
"Because – because – I have promised not to."
"You have promised Mr. Kingston?"
Scarlet with pain and mortification, in an agony of embarrassment, she sighed almost inaudibly,
"Yes."
"Not to dance with me? or merely not to dance waltzes?"
"Must I tell you?" she pleaded, looking up with appealing wet eyes into his hard and haughty face.
"Not unless you like, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think I understand perfectly."
"Oh, Mr. Dalrymple, I want to tell you about it, but I cannot. I am saying things already that I ought not to speak of."
"I don't think so," he replied quickly, suddenly softening until his voice was almost a caress, and set all her sensitive nerves thrilling like an Æolian harp when a strong wind blows over it. "It is in your nature to be honest, and to tell the truth. You are not afraid to tell the truth to me?"
"I would not tell you an untruth," she murmured, looking down; "but the truth – sometimes one must, sometimes one ought – to hide it. And I hoped you would not need to know about this."
"Why, how could I help knowing it? Did you think it likely I might by chance forget you were in the ball-room to-night?"
What she thought clearly "blazed itself in the heart's colours on her simple face." But she did not lift her eyes or speak.
"I am very glad I know," he continued, in a rather stern tone. "If you had done this to me, and never told me why – "
"I should have trusted to you to guess that it was not my fault, and to forgive me for it," the girl interposed, looking up at last with a flash in her soft eyes that, as well as her words, told him