Later, with his mind concentrated solely on Belle's impending visit and what he intended to achieve, he dined alone at the Ritz, dropped in to see a turn or two at the Palace, and strolled back to Forty-eighth Street at half-past-ten. As he went into the house he heard the landlady talking to the two young business men who lived on the first floor. She was asking them to be good enough not to play the piano that evening, as the Professor had come back from the country and was very unwell. She had sent for the doctor, and he would be more comfortable if the house were as silent as it could be made.
Knowing that Belle would be punctual that night, of all nights, he went down just before eleven o'clock and waited for her at the front door. It was his intention to get her into the house unobserved, more for his own sake than for hers. The night was clear, but half a gale was blowing, carrying before it all the dust of the city and sending odd pieces of paper swirling into the air and making the hanging signs outside shops and small restaurants creak and groan. In its strong, vibrating song there was a note of wild passion that fitted exquisitely into Kenyon's frame of mind.
Belle drove up in a taxicab a few minutes after eleven. "Not a word until we get upstairs," said Kenyon, as he helped her out. And then when she stood in his sitting-room, with all her emotions in a state of upheaval, nothing was said for many minutes. He took her in his arms and kissed her, delighting in her young beauty and freshness with all the appreciation of a connoisseur.
There seemed to Belle to be no indiscretion in this visit. Was she not engaged to be married to this man?
As a matter of fact, she was not. Kenyon had been playing with her; and now that he had succeeded to his father's title he had even less intention of dealing seriously by her than ever before. Marriage was not in his thoughts or plans. The title was his and the old house that went with it, but he was no better off than he had been as Nicholas Kenyon, the Oxford undergraduate. On the contrary he now had responsibilities of which he had hitherto been free and he must look out for some one who could buy his name for a substantial sum. If Belle had read into his vague and indefinite remarks a proposal of marriage it only showed that she possessed a very lively imagination. He was not going at that point to undeceive her. He was merely going to take from her everything that she was gracious enough to give. His trip to New York had provided him with very little in actual substance. He was determined that it should not be altogether empty, and that Belle should furnish him with a charming memento.
He broke into Belle's preliminary remarks of conventional condolence by saying, "Thank you; but please don't say a word about my father. Let's talk about ourselves. We're alive. The next few hours are our property. Let's make them memorable. Let's give each other something that we can never forget." And he took her cloak and led her to a chair as though she were a queen, and stood looking at her with very greedy eyes.
But Belle's temperament was Latin. Ever since Kenyon had spoken to her over the telephone she had been unable to control her feelings. She loved this man overwhelmingly. She had given him all her heart, which had never been touched before. To her it seemed amazingly cruel that fate had come along with its usual lack of sympathy and circumspection and put a sudden end to all the delightful hours to which she had been looking forward. The death of a man whom she didn't know meant very little to her. She was young, and to the young what is death but a vague mystery, an inconvenient accident which seems to affect every one but themselves? Indeed, she rather resented the fact that Kenyon's father, in dying, was to take so suddenly out of her life the one human being about whom her entire happiness revolved.
"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas! Must you go? Must you leave me? Let me go with you. I have the right. I shall be miserable and unhappy without you." And she clung to him with all the unreasonableness of a child.
Kenyon was not in the least touched by this appeal—only extremely pleased, because it showed him that Belle was in the right mood to be won. He put his hand on her round, white shoulder. "You must be brave," he said. "I know how you feel, but you must help me. Don't make things more difficult than they are. I may be able to come back quite soon,—who can tell?"
"I believe you're glad to go!" cried Belle.