And two days after John Derringham had arrived in London at his old rooms in Duke Street, she wrote and suggested this plan to him—and then the first preliminary crossing of swords between them happened. He answered that he would come and join her later, but until the session was over he could not leave town, and he begged her to go and stay with Prince Brunemetz, or do anything else which would amuse her. He was still upon crutches, he said, and not fitted to be a cavalier to any lady.
She shut her mouth with a snap, and, sitting down, wrote a long letter to Mr. Hanbury-Green, with whom she kept up a brisk correspondence. Very well, then! she would go to Brudenstein; she would not martyrize herself by being with a man on crutches! So half of her August passed in a most agreeable manner, and towards the end of the month she summoned her fiancé to Florence. He could walk with a stick now—and to meet her there and go on to Venice and out to the Lido would be quite delightful, and could not hurt him. She deserved some attention after this long time!
The end of the session had come, and still the Government hung on, but it was obvious that they had been so much discredited that the end could not be long postponed, and that, as soon as Parliament met again, a hostile vote would be carried against them. But for the time there was nothing to keep John Derringham in England, and with intense reluctance he started for Italy, the ever-nearing date for his wedding looming in front of him like some heavy cloud. He had plunged headlong into work when he had returned from Wendover, for which he was still quite unfit. His whole system had received a terrible shock, and it would be months before he could hope to be his old robust self again; and an unutterable depression was upon him. The total silence of Halcyone, her disappearance from the face of the earth as far as he was concerned, seemed like something incredible.
There were no traces of her. Mrs. Porrit was out, and the orchard house shut up, so, he obtained no information. He had stopped there to enquire on his way to the station when he had left Wendover. La Sarthe Chase was entirely closed, except for a woman and her husband from the village who slept there. But what right had he to be interested now, in any case? He had better shut the whole matter out of his mind, and keep his thoughts upon his coming marriage with Cecilia Cricklander.
And it was this frame of mind which caused him to plunge recklessly into work as soon as he reached London, though he found that nothing really assuaged his misery.
It was a glorious day towards the end of August when he got onto the boat at Dover, and there ran across Miss Cora Lutworth, bent upon trousseau business in Paris. She was with her friend, the lady who chaperoned her, and greeted him with her usual breezy charm.
They sat down together in a comfortable corner on deck, while the lady went to have a sleep. They talked of many things and mutual friends. He was doing what was a comparatively rare thing in those days, taking over a motor to tour down to Venice in, and Cora was duly interested. Freynie adored motoring, too, she said, and that was how they intended to spend their honeymoon. She was going to be married in a few weeks, and was radiantly happy.
This was the first time she had seen John Derringham since his engagement and his accident, and the great change in him gave her an unpleasant shock. There were quite a number of silver threads in his dark hair above the temples, and he looked haggard and gaunt and lifeless. Cora's kind heart was touched.
"I am sure he does not care a rush for Cis," she thought to herself, "and I am sure he did for that sweet Halcyone. He and Cis are not married yet; there can be no harm in my mentioning her." So aloud she said:
"You remember our meeting that charming Miss Halcyone La Sarthe across the haw-haw on Easter Sunday? Well, fancy, I came across her in London at the end of June—in Kensington Gardens, sitting with the long-haired old Professor. I was surprised; somehow one could not picture her out of her own park." She watched John Derringham's face carefully, and saw that this information moved him.