XI
MONEY'S NOT EVERYTHING
"What! You are coming too?"
Nina stopped short on her way to the car and gazed at her husband in amazement.
He had returned early from the City, and she now met him dressed to attend a garden-party whither she herself was going.
He bent his head in answer to her surprised question.
"I shall give myself the pleasure of accompanying you," he said, with much formality.
She coloured and bit her lip. Swift as evil came the thought that he resented her intimacy with Archie and was determined to frustrate any attempt on their part to secure a tête-à-tête.
"You take great care of me," she said, with a bitter little smile.
Wingarde made no response; his face was quite inscrutable.
They scarcely spoke during the drive, and she kept her face averted. Only when he held out his hand to assist her to alight she met his eye for an instant and wondered vaguely at the look he gave her.
The party was a large one; the lawns were crowded. Nina took the first opportunity that offered to slip away from him, for she felt hopelessly ill at ease in his company. The sensation of being watched that had oppressed her during her brief honeymoon had reawakened.
Archie presently joined her.
"Did I see the hero of the Crawley gold field just now?" he asked. "Or was it hallucination?"
Nina looked at him with a very bored expression.
"Oh, yes, my husband is here," she said. "I suppose you had better not stay with me or he will come up and be rude to you."
Archie chuckled.
"Not he! We understand one another," he said lightly. "But, I say, what an impostor the fellow is! Everyone knows about Dr. Wade, but no one connects him in the smallest degree with Hereford Wingarde. It shouldn't be allowed to go on. You ought to tell the town-crier."
Nina tried to laugh, but it was a somewhat dismal effort.
"Come along!" said Archie cheerily. "There's my mother over there; she has been wondering where you were."
Nina went with him with a nervous wonder if Hereford were still watching her, but she saw nothing of him.
The afternoon wore away in music and gaiety. A great many of her acquaintances were present, and to Nina the time passed quickly.
She was sitting in a big marquee drinking the tea that Archie had brought her when she next saw her husband. By chance she discovered him talking with a man she did not know, not ten yards from her. The tent was fairly full, and the buzz of conversation was continuous.
Nina glanced at him from time to time with a curious sense of uneasiness, and an unaccountable desire to detach him from his acquaintance grew gradually upon her.
The latter was a heavy-browed man with queer, furtive eyes. As Nina stealthily watched them she saw that this man was restless and agitated. Her husband's face was turned from her, but his attitude was one of careless ease, into which his big limbs dropped when he was at leisure.
Later she never knew by what impulse she acted. It was as if a voice suddenly cried aloud in her heart that Wingarde was in deadly danger. She gave Archie her cup and rose.
"Just a moment!" she said hurriedly. "I see Hereford over there."
She moved swiftly in the direction of the two men. There was disaster in the air. She seemed to breathe it as she drew near. Her husband straightened himself before she reached him, and half turned with his contemptuous laugh. The next instant Nina saw his companion's hand whip something from behind him. She shrieked aloud and sprang forward like a terrified animal. The man's eyes maddened her more than the deadly little weapon that flashed into view in his right hand.
There followed prompt upon her cry the sharp explosion of a revolver-shot, and then the din of a panic-stricken crowd.
But Nina did not share the panic. She had flung herself in front of her husband, had flung her whole weight upon the upraised arm that had pointed the revolver and borne it downwards with all her strength. Those who saw her action compared it later with the furious attack of a tigress defending her young.
It was all over in a few brief seconds. Men crowded round and overpowered her adversary. Someone took the frenzied girl by the shoulders and forced her to relinquish her clutch.
She turned and looked straight into Wingarde's face, and at the sight her nerves gave way and she broke into hysterical sobbing, though she knew that he was safe.
He put his arm around her and led her from the stifling tent. People made way for them. Only their hostess and Archie Neville followed.
Outside on the lawn, away from the buzzing multitude, Nina began to recover herself. Archie brought a chair, and she dropped into it, but she held fast to Wingarde's arm, beseeching him over and over again not to leave her.
Wingarde stooped over her, supporting her; but he found nothing to say to her. He briefly ordered Archie to fetch some water, and made request to his hostess, almost equally brief, that their car might be called in readiness for departure. But his manner was wholly free from agitation.
"My wife will recover better at home," he said, and the lady of the house went away with a good deal of tact to give the order herself.
Left alone with him, Nina still clung to her husband; but she grew rapidly calmer in his quiet hold. After a moment he spoke to her.
"I wonder how you knew," he said.
Nina leant her head against him like an exhausted child.
"I saw it coming," she said. "It was in his eyes—mad hatred. I knew he was going to—to kill you if he could."
She did not want to meet his eyes, but he gently compelled her.
"And so you saved my life," he said in a quiet tone.
"I had to," she said faintly.
Archie here reappeared with a glass of water.
"The fellow is in a fit," he reported. "They are taking him away. Jove, Wingarde! You ought to be a dead man. If Nina hadn't spoilt that shot—"
Nina was shuddering, and he broke off.
"You'd better give up cornering gold fields," he said lightly. "It seems he was nearly ruined over your last coup. You may do that sort of thing once too often, don't you know. I shouldn't chance another throw."
Nina stood up shakily and looked at her husband.
"If you only would give it up!" she said, with trembling vehemence. "I—I hate money!"
Wingarde made no response; but Archie instantly took her up.
"You only hate money for what it can't buy," he said. "You probably expect too much from it. Don't blame money for that."
Nina uttered a tremulous laugh that sounded strangely passionate.
"You're quite right," she said. "Money's not everything. I have weighed it in the balance and found it wanting."
"Yes," Wingarde said in a peculiar tone. "And so have I."