“I am sure I shall have quite enough to do to remember my own shortcomings; but at any rate I can manage to remind you of yours to-night. We,” with a happy little sigh, “shall have to-morrow,” and she also stood up to depart.
“Yes, please God, thousands of to-morrows. But, Honor, this one moment that you are so anxious to pass by and leave behind can never be repeated or effaced; this hour, when you gave yourself to me here, in this over-grown Indian garden, under the Southern Cross. When we are old Darby and Joan, sitting by our fireside in cold work-a-day England, we shall—at any rate, I shall—look back on this hour as sacred,” and he put his arm round her and kissed her.
The intelligence that Jervis was the Simon Pure, the real, true, and only millionaire, was buzzed from ear to ear, and had soon spread over the club like wild-fire. Mrs. Brande ceased to yawn, fanned herself feverishly, and snappishly refused to believe “one single word of it.” Mrs. Langrishe, for once, sat dumb and glum. More unlikely things had happened within her somewhat extensive experience. Colonel Sladen spluttered out his whole vocabulary of ejaculations and expletives, and Lalla Paske’s eyebrows were almost lost to sight under her fringe! Of course it was the one and only topic; the air was still throbbing with the news, when, during a pause between two dances, Mr. Jervis and Miss Gordon walked into the ball-room. Their entrance produced quite a dramatic effect. How well-bred his air, how fine his profile and the pose of his head; with what easy grace his clothes sat upon him—clothes that were undeniably fashioned by a first-rate London tailor. These little details now struck people who had hitherto scarcely spared him a glance. As for Miss Gordon, she was always beautiful and charming. The pair made an uncommonly effective couple, and they looked so radiant, that their future happiness was evidently a settled thing. Yes, now that one came to think of it, they had always been good friends.
“And was it really thirty thousand a year? Was it in soap or pork? At any rate, it was a magnificent match for a penniless girl!” whispered a married lady to her partner.
“Of course the old woman was in the secret all along,” remarked Mrs. Langrishe to a neighbour; “she is much cleverer than any of us have supposed. Oh, what a deep game she has played! What an old serpent!”
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE SUMMONS.
In the moonlight, bright as day, Mr. Jervis rode home beside Miss Gordon’s rickshaw. Her tell-tale fan stuck out of the pocket of his overcoat.
Yes, their little world was not blind; it was evidently a settled thing. Most people were glad. The Brandes were sure to do the wedding in “style;” and a wedding would be an agreeable variety from dances and picnics.
“I shall come up to-morrow morning,” he said, as he reluctantly released her hand, “to-morrow before twelve.”
Mr. Brande, who had effected his escape early, had returned home, and been in bed and asleep for some hours.