"Dear Tennyson," murmured Dopsy, whose knowledge of the Laureate's works had not gone very far beyond "The May Queen," and "The Charge of the Six Hundred."
It was growing late in the evening when de Cazalet showed himself. The drawing-room party had been in very fair spirits without him, but it was a smaller and a quieter party than usual; for Leonard had taken Captain Vandeleur off to his own den after dinner, and Mr. Montagu had offered to play a fifty game, left-handed, against the combined strength of Dopsy and Mopsy. Christabel had been at the piano almost all the evening, playing with a breadth and grandeur which seemed to rise above her usual style. The ladies made a circle in front of the fire, with Mr. Faddie and Mr. FitzJesse, talking and laughing in a subdued tone, while those grand harmonies of Beethoven's rose and fell upon their half indifferent, half admiring ears.
Christabel played the closing chords of the Funeral March of a Hero as de Cazalet entered the room. He went straight to the piano, and seated himself in the empty chair by her side. She glided into the melancholy arpeggios of the Moonlight Sonata, without looking up from the keys. They were a long way from the group at the fire—all the length of the room lay in deep shadow between the lamps on the mantelpiece and neighbouring tables, and the candles upon the piano. Pianissimo music seemed to invite conversation.
"You have written your letters?" she asked lightly.
"My letters were a fiction—I did not want to sit face to face with your husband at dinner, after our conversation this afternoon at the waterfall; you can understand that, can't you Christabel. Don't—don't do that."
"What?" she asked, still looking down at the keys.
"Don't shudder when I call you by your Christian name—as you did just now. Christabel, I want your answer to my question of to-day. I told you then that the crisis of our fate had come. I tell you so again to-night—more earnestly, if it is possible to be more in earnest than I was to-day. I am obliged to speak to you here—almost within earshot of those people—because time is short, and I must take the first chance that offers. It has been my accursed luck never to be with you alone—I think this afternoon was the first time that you and I have been together alone since I came here. You don't know how hard it has been for me to keep every word and look within check—always to remember that we were before an audience."
"Yes, there has been a good deal of acting," she answered quietly.
"But there must be no more acting—no more falsehood. We have both made up our minds, have we not, my beloved? I think you love me—yes, Christabel, I feel secure of your love. You did not deny it to-day, when I asked that thrilling question—those hidden eyes, the conscious droop of that proud head, were more eloquent than words. And for my love, Christabel—no words can speak that. It shall be told by-and-by in language that all the world can understand—told by my deeds. The time has come for decision; I have had news to-day that renders instant action necessary. If you and I do not leave Cornwall together to-morrow, we may be parted for ever. Have you made up your mind?"
"Hardly," she answered, her fingers still slowly moving over the keys in those plaintive arpeggios.