He walked to the corner and stood for a moment, his cigar in his hand, casting his eye along the length of the piazza. It was much as he had expected. In the white sheen of the moon a young couple here and there slowly strolled, idly chatting. The columns supporting the roof were duplicated in shadowy pilasters that extended the effect of the colonnade. The bare boughs of a locust tree, always the earliest denuded by the autumnal blasts, were drawn on a clear space on the floor with the distinctness of a line engraving, and the dense foliage of a great oak close by cast a deeper gloom within the railing because of the clear lustre that elsewhere suffused mountain and valley, and sward and pillared portico. The parallelograms of light earlier cast on the floor from the lamp-lit windows and doors were now annulled by the lunar brilliancy, obliterated. Indeed he might scarcely have discerned from where he stood the position of the office door had not the light, elegant form of Lucia Laniston with its lily-like suggestions, suddenly issued from it, one hand holding up the sheer draperies of her dress, the other furling her fan of dark green ostrich tips. His heart throbbed at the sight of her; then he stood as one petrified.
For a man, who was leaning smoking against one of the pillars, suddenly threw his cigar over the balustrade into the lawn, and with perfect assurance approached and accosted her as she stood glancing about in loitering doubt.
"Miss Laniston," Jardine heard the words, for Lloyd's enunciation was very distinct and his voice carried well, "you spoke to me very kindly last evening—and I should like to tell you about something, sad and wrong and irrevocable in the past, and a very strange thing that has befallen me to-day and changed all my prospects."
Jardine woke to sudden life. He strode along the piazza and joined the two before the young lady had framed her reply.
"Good-evening, Miss Laniston," he said imperiously, taking no notice of the presence of Lloyd; "I hope that you are not too fatigued for a stroll on the piazza to enjoy this balmy air. Let me show you a charming view of the moonlight on the cascade. The stream has risen so since the storm that you can see the falls from the end of the piazza at the west wing."
He could not believe his ears. "Later, perhaps—thank you very much—but just now I am engaged."
She summoned Lloyd with a glance, and catching up the fleecy overdress with one jewelled hand, while the silken skirt below shimmered blue and shoaled green in the moonlight as it trailed, she paced slowly along with him in the opposite direction, and Jardine noted the sympathetic cadence in her voice as she invited the colloquy with a question.
Jardine was furious, on fire, not from jealousy, for he could not stoop to recognise rivalry from this quarter, but with the sense of the subjection of the highly placed and finely endowed woman whom he loved to ignoble association, which because of her youth and inexperience she knew not how to discern and repel, and from which by reason of the incompetence of her guardians and his own lack of authority she was altogether unprotected. He would not be still—he would no longer supinely submit. He turned into the office of the hotel animated with an intention that would brook neither denial nor delay.
In the summer this large apartment was almost entirely relinquished to business and to the masculine guests who were wont to wait here for the distribution of the mail, to read the in-coming newspapers, to discuss the phases of politics and public events they suggested, and pending all to smoke interminably. Though the number of habitués was so wofully decreased the autumn wrought an added cheer in the presence of great, alluring, genial fires and the change of feminine intrusion. Now it was almost given over to the ladies, but neither politics nor tobacco had been tabooed. Games of hazard for stakes had always sought more secluded quarters, and naught could better comport with the sentiment of the refining influences of woman's presence than the game of chess at which two elderly worthies sat, their eyes fixed on the board, as motionless as if they had been stricken into stone. A group of four ladies and gentlemen were deep in the allurements of bridge at the table in the bay-window. Several guests languidly swayed in rocking-chairs before the fire, aimlessly chatting. Among these was Mrs. Laniston cutting the leaves of a new magazine and theorising ably on the perishable impression of periodical literature. Frank Laniston was hooked on by the elbows to the counter, while he gazed up the staircase ever and anon, expecting the descent of a very young lady whose mamma had required her to procure her long red cloth coat before she ventured out with a party bound for the spring. The elderly stranger, fraternising with no one, had deliberately lighted a cigar after observing that the practice of smoking here was permitted, and sat in the chimney corner, very much at home, composed, observant, evidently enjoying the luxury of the fire and satisfied with his surroundings. He took his cigar from his lips and fixed his great, shiny, hazel eyes on Jardine with very much the air of being interrupted, before the stare of surprise effaced every other expression of his large, handsome florid face.
"I want to know what you mean by this?" Jardine said without preamble or disguise. His voice was tense and low, but so obviously freighted with passion that the bridge players paused in amaze.