“Faith, child,” he replied, pulling himself together with an effort, “I don’t mean anything. You shall, if I can manage it, walk on roses as long as you live; and now, now, Nance—during our glorious honeymoon, we will not think for one moment of the possibility of a shadow. Come, darling, the carriage must be waiting for us in the courtyard.”
They went downstairs in the lift.
Rowton’s prophecy was abundantly fulfilled: there was not a man in the place who did not look with more than admiration at the lovely girl who walked by his side. They went to the opera and Rowton watched the faces of his fellow-men and women. Some acquaintance in a distant box recognised him and bowed. Rowton returned their salutations icily; he did not want old friends to crop up here; he was determined to share Nance with no one during the golden four weeks which he had allowed himself. But when a Frenchman of the name of D’Escourt knocked at the door of the Rowtons’ box, Rowton felt forced to admit him and to introduce him to Nance. The two men talked for a little time in French, and D’Escourt promised himself the pleasure of calling on Mrs. Rowton early the following day. He sat down presently by her side, and began to talk. He was a man of the world, extremely polished, and with a perfect knowledge of English as well as French. Nancy’s French was not her strong point, and she was glad to talk to the stranger in English.
“By the way,” he said suddenly, turning and looking at Rowton, who with a frown between his brows gazed gloomily into the house, “it is some years now since I saw you in our gay capital, my friend; not since 18⸺” He mentioned a date; it was the year of Anthony Follett’s death.
“I wonder,” thought Nance to herself, “if Adrian could help me in my strange and awful search. I will not think to-night of that terrible fate which hangs over me.”
She tried to force her thoughts from the subject, but try as she would, they hovered round it. She suddenly felt cold and miserable; her conscience seemed to reproach her for her present extraordinary bliss; she thought of her dead father, the desolate Grange, and the long six years of misery. Her present life seemed like a dream; she might awaken any moment to find herself back at the Grange; Rowton not allowed to visit her, her father there, and the dreadful, stingy, starved existence once more her own.
She started, hearing Adrian’s voice in her ears.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.
“I was trying to pinch myself,” she said.
She looked up and saw that D’Escourt had left them. “I was trying to pinch myself,” she continued, “to find out whether I was really in a dream or not.”