The world stared at them – curious and almost interested – searching wounds that had only just begun to ache, since indifferent hands had dared to touch them. And convention said: "Thou shalt not seem to suffer; thou shalt pass by serene and unmoved; thou shalt dance and sing and parade in park or ball room; thou art my puppet and I have nought to do with thy soul."
So Luke and Louisa did as convention bade them, and people stared at them and asked them inane questions that were meant to be delicate, but were supremely tactless. People too wondered what they meant to do, when the engagement would be duly broken off, or what Colonel Harris's – Louisa's father – attitude would be in all this. Somehow after the first excitement consequent on Lord Radclyffe's open acknowledgment of the claimant things had tamed off somewhat; Luke de Mountford looked just the same as before, although awhile ago he had been heir to one of the finest peerages in England and now was a penniless son of a younger son. I don't know whether people thought that he ought to look entirely different now, or whether he should henceforth wear shabby dress clothes and gloves that betrayed the dry cleaner; certain it is that when Luke entered a reception room, a dozen lips were ready – had they dared or good-breeding allowed – to frame the question:
"Well, and what are you going to do now?"
Or,
"Do tell us how it feels to find one's self a beggar all of a sudden."
Enterprising hostesses made great attempts to gather all parties in their drawing rooms. With strategy worthy of a better cause they manœuvred to invite Philip de Mountford and Lord Radclyffe, and Luke and Louisa – all to the same dinner party – promising themselves and their other guests a subtle enjoyment at sight of these puppets dancing to rousing tunes, beside which the most moving problem play would seem but tame entertainment.
But Philip de Mountford – though as much sought after now as Luke had been in the past – declined to be made a show of for the delectation of bored society women; he declined all invitations on his own and Lord Radclyffe's behalf.
So people had to be content to watch Luke and Louisa.
They were together at the Ducies' At Home. There was a crush, a Hungarian band from Germany, a Russian singer from Bayswater, a great many diamonds, and incessant gossip.
"Luke de Mountford is here – and Miss Harris. Have you seen them?"
"Oh, yes! we met on the stairs, and had a long chat."
"How do they seem?"
"Oh! quite happy."
"They don't care."
"Do they mean to break off the engagement?"
"I have heard nothing. Have you?"
"Louisa Harris has a nice fortune of her own."
"And Lord Radclyffe will provide for Luke."
"I don't think so. He practically turned him out of the house, you know."
"Not really?"
"I know it for a positive fact. My sister has just got a new butler, who left Lord Radclyffe's service the very day Philip de Mountford first walked into the house."
"Old Parker, I remember him."
"He says Lord Radclyffe turned all the family out, bag and baggage. They were so insolent to Philip."
"Then it's quite true?"
"That this Philip is the late Arthur de Mountford's son?"
"Quite true, I believe. Lord Radclyffe openly acknowledges it. He is satisfied apparently."
"So are the lawyers, I understand."
"Oh! how do you do, Miss Harris? So glad to see you looking so well."
This, very pointedly, as Louisa, perfectly gowned, smiling serenely, ascended the broad staircase.
"I have not been ill, Lady Keogh."
"Oh, no! of course not. And how is Mr. de Mountford?"
"You can ask him yourself."
And Louisa passed on to make way for Luke. And the same remarks and the same question were repeated ad infinitum, until a popular waltz played by the Hungarian gentlemen from Germany drew the fashionable crowd round the musicians' platform.
Then Luke and Louisa contrived to make good their escape, and to reach the half-landing above the heads of numerous young couples that adorned the stairs. The hum of voices, the noise of shrill laughter, and swish of skirts and fans masked their own whisperings. The couples on the stairs were absorbed in their own little affairs; they were sitting out here so that they might pursue their own flirtations.
Luke and Louisa could talk undisturbed.
They spoke of the flat in Exhibition Road and of the furniture that Louisa had helped Edie to select.
"There are only a few odds and ends to get now," Louisa was saying, "coal scuttles and waste-paper baskets; that sort of thing. I hope you don't think that we have been extravagant. Edie, I am afraid, had rather luxurious notions – "
"Poor Edie!"
"Oh! I don't think she minds very much. Life at Grosvenor Square in the past month has not been over cheerful."
Then as Luke made no comment she continued in her own straightforward, matter-of-fact way – the commonplace woman facing the ordinary duties of life:
"Now that the flat is all in order, you can all move in whenever you like – and then, Luke, you must begin to think of yourself."
"Of you, Lou," he said simply.
"Oh! there's nothing," she said, "to think about me."
"There you are wrong, Lou, and you must not talk like that. Our engagement must be officially broken off. Colonel Harris has been too patient as it is."
"Father," she rejoined, "does not wish the engagement broken off."
"All these people," he said, nodding in the direction of the crowd below, "will expect some sort of announcement."
"Let them."
"Lou, you must take back your word."
"How does one take back one's word, Luke? Have you ever done it? I shouldn't know how to."
She looked at him straight, her eyes brilliant in the glare of the electric lamps, not a tear in them or in his, her face immovable, lest indifferent eyes happened to be turned up to where these two interesting people sat. Only a quiver round the lips, a sign that passion palpitated deep down within her heart, below the Bond Street gown and the diamond collar, the soul within the puppet.
She held his glance, forcing him into mute acknowledgment that his philosophy, his worldliness, was only veneer, and that he had not really envisaged the hard possibility of actually losing her.
Oh, these men of this awful conventional world! How cruel they can be in that proud desire to do what is right! – what their code tells them is right! – no law of God or nature that! – only convention, the dictates of other men! Hard on themselves, selfless in abnegation, but not understanding that the dearest gift they can bestow on a woman is the right for her to efface herself, the right for her to be the giver of love, of consolation, of sacrifice.
Commonplace, plain, sensible Louisa understood everything that Luke felt; those great luminous eyes of hers, tearless yet brilliant, read every line on that face drilled into impassiveness.
No one else could have guessed the precise moment at which softness crept into the hard determination of jaw and lips; no ear but hers could ever have perceived the subtle change in the quivering breath, from hard obstinacy that drew the nostrils together, and set every line of the face, to that in-drawing of the heavy air around caused by passionate longing which hammered at the super-excited brain, and made