"You talk of women as if they were a—a kind of plague; you were never in love, Howard?" he asked.
"Never, thank Heaven!" responded Howard, devoutly. "When I think of it, I acknowledge that I have much to be thankful for. I was once: she was a girl with dark eyes—but I will spare you a minute description. I met her in a country rectory—is that horse, I think you call it the near one—going to jump over the bank? And one remarkably fine evening—it was moonlight, I remember—I was on the point of declaring my love; and then the gods saved me. The thought flashed upon me that, if she said 'yes,' I should have to sit opposite her at dinner for the rest of one of our lives. It saved me. I said that I thought it was chilly, and went in and up to bed, grateful for my escape. Why don't you laugh?"
Stafford only smiled in a perfunctory fashion. He was thinking of the girl he had watched riding off on the unbroken colt; of what it would seem like if she were seated opposite him, with the candle-light falling on her soft white dress, with diamonds gleaming in it, diamonds outshone by the splendour of those dark, violet-grey eyes; of what it would seem like if he could rise from his seat and go to her and take her in his arms and look into those dark grey eyes, and say, "You are mine, mine!" with no one to say him nay.
"It was a lucky escape for her," he said, dreamily.
"It was," assented Howard, solemnly. "Not one man in a thousand can love one woman all his life; and I've the strongest conviction that I am not that one. In less than six months I should have grown tired of her—in less than a year I should have flown from the joys of matrimony—or killed the partner of those joys. Has Pottinger a wife and family, my dear Stafford? If so, is it wise to risk his life in this fashion? I don't care for myself—though still young, I am not afraid to die, and I would as soon meet it hurled from a phaeton as not—but may I beg of you to think of Pottinger?"
Stafford laughed.
"The horses are all right," he said. "They are only fresh, and want to go."
He could not have driven slowly, for his mind, dwelling on the girl in the well-worn habit, was electric.
"I have spared you, hitherto, any laudation of the scenery, my dear Staff," said Howard, pleasantly, "but permit me to remark that it really is very beautiful. Trust the great and powerful Sir Stephen to choose the best nature and art can produce! What is this?"
"This" proved to be a newly built lodge which appeared on the left of the road. Stafford slowed up, and a lodgekeeper came and flung open the new and elaborately wrought iron gates.
"This the way to—to Sir Stephen's house?" asked Stafford.
The man touched his hat reverentially.
"Yes, sir," he replied. "Sir Stephen's arrived. Came an hour ago."
Stafford nodded, and drove on.
The road was certainly a new one, but it was lined with rhododendrons and costly shrubs, and it wound and wound serpentine fashion through shrubberies and miniature plantations which indicated not only remarkably good taste, but vast expenditure. At intervals the trees had been felled to permit a view of the lake, lying below, like a sapphire glowing in the sunlight.
Presently they came in sight of the house. It was larger than it had looked in the distance; a veritable palace. An architect had received carte-blanche, and disporting himself right royally, had designed a façade which it would be hard to beat: at any rate, in England.
Stafford eyed it rather grumpily. Most Englishmen dislike ostentation and display; and to Stafford the place seemed garish and "loud." Howard surveyed it with cynical admiration.
"A dream of Kubla Kahn—don't know whether I've got the name right: poem of Coleridge's, you know—but of course you don't know; you don't go in for poetry. Well I'm bound to admit that it's striking, not to say beautiful," he went on, as the horses sprang up the last ascent and rattled on in an impatient, high-spirited trot along the level road to the terrace fronting the entrance.
As Stafford pulled up, a couple of grooms came forward; the hall door—enamelled in peacock blue—opened and a butler and two footmen in rich maroon livery appeared. They came down the white marble steps in stately fashion and ranged themselves as if the ceremony were of vast importance, and as Howard and Stafford got down they bowed with the air of attendants receiving royalty.
As Stafford, flinging the reins to one of the grooms, got down, he caught sight of a line of liveried servants in the hall, and he frowned slightly.
Like most young Englishmen, he hated ostentation, which he designated as "fuss."
"Rub 'em down well, Pottinger," he said, and he leisurely patted the horses while the gorgeous footmen watched with solemn impressiveness.
"We've brought 'em along pretty well," he said, turning to Howard, who stood beside him with a fine and cynical smile; then he went up the white marble steps slowly, carefully ignoring the footmen who had drawn themselves into a line as if they were a guard of honour, specially drilled to receive him.
Followed by Howard, his cynical smile still lingering about his thin lips, Stafford entered the hall.
It was Oriental in shape and design, with a marble fountain in the centre, and carved arches before the various passages. The principal staircase was also of white marble with an Indian carpet of vivid crimson. Palms reared their tall and graceful heads at intervals, shading statuary in the prevailing white marble. Hangings of rose colour broke the sameness and accentuated the purity of the predominate whiteness.
Howard looked round with an admiration which obliterated his usual cynicism.
"Beautiful!" he murmured.
But Stafford frowned. The luxury, the richness of the place, though chaste, jarred on him; why, he could not have told.
Suddenly, as they were making their way through the lines of richly liveried servants, a curtain at one of the openings was thrown aside, and a gentleman came out to meet them.
He was rather a tall man, with white hair, but with eyebrows and moustache of jet-black. His eyes were brilliant but sharp, and he moved with the ease and alertness of youth.
There was something in his face, in its expression, which indicated strength and power; something in his manner, in his smile, peculiarly electric and sympathetic.
Howard stopped and drew back, but Stafford advanced, and Sir Stephen caught him by the hand and held it.
"My dear Stafford, my dear boy!" he said, in a deep but musical voice.
"I expected you hours ago; I have been waiting! But better late than
never. Who is this? Your friend, Mr. Howard? Certainly! How do you do,
Mr. Howard! Welcome to our little villa on the lake!"
CHAPTER VI
Stafford's heart warmed at his father's greeting; indeed it would have been a very callous heart if it had not; for the emotion of genuine affection shone in Sir Stephen's brilliant eyes, and rang in his musical voice. Stafford was all the more impressed and touched, because the emotion was unusual, or rather, the expression of it.
This is a "casual" age, in which a man parts from or meets his relations and friends with the real or assumed indifference which is ordained by fashion. It is bad form to display one's affection, even for the woman one loves, excepting in extreme seclusion and privacy. If you meet your dearest chum who has just come out of the Transvaal War by the skin of his teeth, it is not permitted you to say more than: "Ah—er—how d'ye do. Got back, then, old man?" and at parting from one's nearest relative, perhaps for the remainder of his life, one must hide the grief that racks the heart, with an enquiry as to whether he has got a comfortable berth and has remembered his umbrella.