"Yes," she said, and she accompanied him, meek, silent, subdued, and allowing him to encircle her slight waist with a firm, proprietory clasp, glided round and round to the dreamy melody of the "Bienaimée" valse. Once before, when she had first longed for his love, and felt the throes of this overwhelming life-passion, they had danced together to that swaying, suggestive melody. He remembered it-remembered how to feel her slight form almost in his embrace had urged him into a reckless avowal of a love which was promptly rejected. He set his teeth. He was at a white heat again-and she-? By some subtle sense he believed his moment had come.
"I must speak to you," he hoarsely said, as they halted, Joan white and breathless with emotion. "May I?"
She looked up into his eyes, and at the intensity of the appealing, passionate abandonment to his will in that gaze, he thrilled with triumph.
"We will go into the Duchess's boudoir, I know we may," he said, feeling a little giddy as he escorted her along a corridor and through the drawing-rooms. The boudoir was empty-one or two couples only were seated in the adjacent anteroom, he saw at a glance they were well occupied with their own flirtations. He closed the door, drew the embroidered satin portiére across-they were alone in the dimly-lighted room.
He turned to her as she stood gazing at him, pale, fascinated. He took her hands. "Joan!" he said-then, as he felt her passion, he simply drew her into his arms, and stooping, kissed her lips-a long, passionate kiss.
To feel his lips on hers was ecstacy to her-for a few moments she forgot all-it was like heaven before its time. Then she feebly pushed him away, and gave a low moan.
"Oh! what have I done?" she wailed, and she glanced about like a hunted creature. "How could you?"
"You love me! What is to keep us asunder?" he hoarsely cried. As she sank shuddering, gasping, into a chair, he fell at her knees, and embraced them. "I am the happiest man on earth! For your uncle will approve, and you-you, Joan! All that was wanted was your love to make you my dear-wife!"
"Wife!" She sank back and groaned. "I shall never be any man's wife!" she said. "Why? Because I do not want to be! That is all! Because I never shall and will be!"
Was she crazy? He rose, slowly, and contemplated her. No! There were anguish and suffering in the lines about her mouth and eyes-in those lustrous, strained brown orbs-but no insanity.
"We must talk it all over. I must-I mean, I may see you to-morrow, may I not?" he gently said, drawing a chair near, and seating himself between her and the door, he besought at least one interview, so that they should "understand each other." He had but just obtained a reluctant consent to a tête-à-tête on the morrow, when the door suddenly opened, a gay young voice cried, "surely there can't be any one in here!" and a bright face peeped round the curtain and at once disappeared.
"Lady Violet!" exclaimed Joan, starting up. "She has seen us!"
"And if she has?" asked her lover, mystified by her terror at having been discovered alone with him by the Duke's eldest daughter. Still, with the promise of an elucidatory interview, he obeyed her wishes, and left her to return to the ballroom without his escort.
She did not linger: she almost fled, scared, from the boudoir through the drawing-rooms, into the corridor. Which way led to the ballroom? Hesitating, glancing right and left, she saw one of the picturesque black-clad servitors coming towards her. She would ask him.
As he advanced, the man's face riveted her attention. Not because of its wax mask-like regularity, and the intent, glittering stare of the black eyes which fixed themselves boldly upon her own; but because the countenance was singularly like one which haunted her memory-waking and sleeping-the hideous ghost of her foolish past.
"Heavens-how terribly like him!" she murmured to herself, unconsciously, involuntarily shrinking back against the wall as he came near.
Like! As the man came up, and halted, she gave a strangled cry like the pitiful dying wail of a poor hare.
"I see, you recognize me," he said, in a low voice, with a bitter little smile. "Don't be alarmed! I am not going to claim you publicly, here, to-night. But if you do not want me to call and send in my credentials at your uncle's house, you will meet me to-morrow at the old place, in the evening. I shall be there at eight, and will wait till you come. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered. As he passed on and opening a baize door, disappeared, she stood gazing after him as if his words had been a sword-thrust, and she was a dead woman.
CHAPTER IV
Joan stood in the corridor, white, hardly breathing, as if turned to stone, her beautiful eyes riveted on the spot where the man who was once her lover had disappeared.
"Victor!" she thought, as her whole being seemed to writhe in an agony of despair. "Victor-and in the duke's livery-am I mad?"
She gave a wild laugh, and the sudden sound startled her into sanity. Numbness had followed the shock of seeing the man living, in the flesh, whom she had hoped against hope was dead. Now she seemed to come to life again. She clenched her nails into her gloved hands so vehemently that the fine kid was rent. She suppressed her almost ungovernable desire to groan out her misery, and as she set her teeth and closed her eyes to realize the situation and deal with it, she seemed to see her soul naked within her, and it was ablaze with one dominating passion alone-love for Vansittart.
"I am all his," she slowly told herself. "How I have become so-I never wished it-Nature, fate, the Creator who made us, alone, know. But I am his, he is my lord and master, and whatever comes between me and him must be trodden under foot!"
Her whole being, violently shocked and almost outraged by the sudden blow, the reappearance of the unscrupulous man who had dared to annex her fair young girlhood and chain it to his fouled existence, rose and asserted itself in a strong, overpowering will-to belong to Vansittart, its rightful owner by legitimate conquest, against all and every obstacle. The feeling was so huge, so powerful, she felt as a very feather in its grasp: she was awed by it, but strengthened.
"I will, I must be his, and I shall be!" she told herself, feeling as if the words had uttered themselves prophetically, by some mysterious agency, within her soul. And she quietly returned to the ballroom, calmed; for she was as an almost automaton, swayed by some obsessive spirit which had asserted itself when she was half wild with despair.
Entering the ballroom, she saw Vansittart, pale, his eyes laden with emotion, watching for her just within the doorway. The heat, the buzz, the patter of feet upon the parquet-they were dancing a cotillon-the braying of the band, took her aback in her strained, nervous state for a moment. Then she recovered herself and went up to him.
"Take me to auntie," she said, smiling up at him. "But first, one word! Do I look ill? I feel so-I am subject to horrid neuralgia, and it has just begun. I am distracted with pain! I shall be in bed all day to-morrow, I am sure! Put off coming till the day after, won't you?"
Was it a dream, an illusion-her confiding, tender manner-that sweet appealing look in those adored, beautiful eyes? Vansittart felt suddenly weak and tremulous as he drew her hand within his arm. She loved him! He was certain of it! She loved him! She had not known it till he dared all in that passionate kiss. He vaguely felt himself the Pygmalion who had awakened another Galatea.
"My darling, I am afraid it is my fault," he murmured in her ear, as he conveyed her towards the corner where Lady Thorne sat patiently listening to the prattle of the surrounding dowagers, and trying not to wish the evening at an end. "How dear of you to to say 'No!' Of course I will postpone coming. But I may call and enquire? No? Very well! You have only to command me, my queen, my adored!"
Could it be real, that faint pressure of his arm, as he looked fondly down upon that lovely little golden head? Vansittart almost lost his grip upon himself, almost forgot to act the mere amiable cavalier, as he accompanied Joan and her inwardly relieved and delighted aunt to the cooler regions of the ducal establishment, and after vainly pressing them to take some refreshment, found their carriage. As he stood bareheaded under the awning after they had driven off, he glanced up at the sky-it had been raining and now a wreath of cloud had parted to disclose a misty moon-and a vague but real remorse that he had not kept up with