He took a step towards the curtain, and then drew back. What right had he to lift it? What right had he, the promised husband of Lady Victoria, to test the faith of the woman who had just refused his hand? Reason bade him go away, satisfied with the silent testimony of that damning screen.
But reason is a mere lawyer, whose client is passion. John Hammond could no more leave that gallery without drawing the curtain than the steel can detach itself from the magnet. It did not take long to reason himself into the belief that to go away now would be disloyalty to Belle herself; it would be to accept Despencer’s word against hers without inquiry. He stepped forward again, and his hand was stretched out towards the curtain, when he was arrested by the entrance of a man at the opposite door.
Captain Mauleverer had taken advantage of his dismissal by the marchioness to wander off to a nook at the top of his uncle’s house and indulge in a quiet smoke. Returning through the gallery, where he had half hoped to find Victoria waiting for him, he was surprised to find himself in the presence of Hammond.
“Why, Hammond, what are you doing here all by yourself?” he exclaimed as he came up.
Hammond drew back a few steps from the curtain.
“What am I doing?” He raised his voice and glanced towards the purple folds as though he would have looked through them to see the effect of his words. “I am wondering why it is that we men are ever fools enough to expect truth from the lips of a woman.”
“Is that all?” returned Mauleverer, his own mood in harmony with his friend’s. “I didn’t know that any sensible man ever did. I’m sure I don’t.”
“Why, what is wrong with you?” asked the other, incredulously. “You haven’t been deceived by the woman you trusted?”
“It seems to me we all have,” was the bitter answer. “Don’t you remember what I was telling you about down-stairs?”
“Ah, yes; I had forgotten it. You mean that girl? Why, have you just discovered that she really loves another man?”