“God forbid!” I ejaculated.

“Ah! God never forbids the fulfilment of His own laws!” he answered—“To do so He would have to destroy Himself.”

“If He exists at all!” I said carelessly.

“True! If—!”

And with this, we separated to our different quarters in the ‘Grand.’

[p 165]
XV

After that evening I became a regular and welcome visitor at Lord Elton’s house, and was soon on terms of the most friendly intimacy with all the members of his family, including even the severely pious Miss Charlotte Fitzroy. It was not difficult for me to see that my matrimonial aspirations were suspected,—and though the encouragement I received from Lady Sibyl herself was so slight as to make me doubtful whether after all my hopes of winning her would ever be realized, the Earl made no secret of his delight at the idea of securing me as a son-in-law. Such wealth as mine was not to be met with every day,—and even had I been a blackleg of the turf or a retired jockey, instead of an ‘author,’ I should, with five millions at my back, have been considered quite as desirable a suitor for the Lady Sibyl’s hand. Rimânez scarcely ever went with me to the Eltons’ now, pleading as excuse much pressing business and many social engagements. I was not altogether sorry for this. Greatly as I admired and honoured him, his extraordinary physical beauty and fascination of manner were in dangerous contrast to my merely ‘ordinary good-looking’ personality, and it seemed to me impossible that any woman, seeing much of him, could be expected to give me the preference. All the same I had no fear that he would ever voluntarily become my rival,—his antipathy to women was too deep-rooted and sincere for that. On this point indeed his feelings were so strong and passionate that I often wondered why the society sirens who [p 166] eagerly courted his attention remained so blind and unconscious to the chill cynicism that lurked beneath his seeming courtesy,—the cutting satire that was coupled with apparent compliment, and the intensity of hatred that flamed under the assumed expression of admiring homage in his flashing eyes. However it was not my business to point out to those who could not, or would not, see the endless peculiarities of my friend’s variable disposition. I did not pay much heed to them even so far as I myself was concerned, for I had grown accustomed to the quick changes he was wont to ring on all the gamut of human feeling, and absorbed in my own life-schemes I did not trouble myself to intimately study the man who had in a couple of months become my fidus Achates. I was engrossed at the moment in doing all I could to increase the Earl of Elton’s appreciative sense of my value as a man and a millionaire, and to this end I paid some of his pressing debts, lent him a large sum of money without demanding interest or promise of repayment, and stocked his cellar with presents of such rare old wines as he had not been able to afford to purchase for himself for many years. Thus was confidence easily engendered between us, even to that point of affection which displayed itself in his lordship’s readiness to thrust his arm through mine when we sauntered together down Piccadilly, and his calling me ‘my dear boy’ in public. Never shall I forget the bewildered amazement of the scrubby little editor of a sixpenny magazine who met me face to face thus accompanied in the Park one morning! That he knew the Earl of Elton by sight was evident, and that he also knew me his apoplectic stare confessed. He had pompously refused to even read any of my offered contributions on the ground that I had ‘no name,’—and now—! he would have given a month’s salary if I had but condescended to recognize him! I did not so condescend,—but passed him by, listening to, and laughing with my intended future father-in-law, who was retailing an extremely ancient joke for my benefit. The incident was slight, even trumpery,—yet it put me in a good humour, for one of the chiefest pleasures I had out of my wealth was the [p 167] ability to repay with vengeful interest all the contempt and insult that had beaten me back from every chance of earning a livelihood while I was poor.

In all my visits to the Eltons, I never saw the paralysed Countess again. Since the last terrible visitation of her dread disease, she had not moved. She merely lived and breathed—no more. Lord Elton told me that the worst part of her illness at present, so far as it affected those who had to attend upon her, was the particularly hideous alteration of her face.

“The fact is,” he said, not without a shudder—“she’s dreadful to look at,—positively dreadful!—no longer human, you know. She used to be a lovely woman,—now she is literally frightful. Her eyes especially;—they are as scared and wild as if she had seen the devil. Quite an awful expression I assure you!—and it never alters. The doctors can do nothing—and of course it’s very trying for Sibyl, and everybody.”