There was a sudden silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he repeated, his brilliant eyes flashing derisively, I thought, over the whole well-fed company, “Midnight has struck and the best of friends must part! But before we do so, let us not forget that we have met here to wish all happiness to our host, Mr Geoffrey Tempest and his bride-elect, the Lady Sibyl Elton.” Here there was vociferous applause. “It is said”—continued Lucio, “by the makers of dull maxims, that ‘Fortune never comes with both hands full’—but in this case the adage is proved false and put to shame,—for our friend has not only secured the pleasures of wealth, but the treasures of love and beauty combined. Limitless cash is good, but limitless love is better, and both these choice gifts have been bestowed on the betrothed pair whom to-day we honour. I will ask you to give them a hearty round of cheering,—and then it must be good-night indeed, though not farewell,—for with the toast of the bride and bridegroom-elect, I shall also drink to the time,—not far distant perhaps,—when I shall see some of you, if not all of you again, and enjoy even more of your charming company than I have done to-day!”
[p 284]
He ceased amid a perfect hurricane of applause,—and then everyone rose and turned towards the table where I sat with Sibyl, and naming our names aloud, drank wine, the men joining in hearty shouts of “Hip, hip, hip hurrah!” Yet,—as I bowed repeatedly in response to the storm of cheering, and while Sibyl smiled and bent her graceful head to right and left, my heart sank suddenly with a sense of fear. Was it my fancy—or did I hear peals of wild laughter circling round the brilliant pavilion and echoing away, far away into distance? I listened, glass in hand. “Hip, hip, hip hurrah!” shouted my guests with gusto. “Ha—ha—! ha—ha!” seemed shrieked and yelled in my ears from the outer air. Struggling against this delusion, I got up and returned thanks for myself and my future bride in a few brief words which were received with fresh salvos of applause,—and then we all became aware that Lucio had sprung up again in his place, and was standing high above us all, with one foot on the table and the other on the chair, confronting us with a fresh glass of wine in his hand, filled to the brim. What a face he had at that moment!—what a smile!
“The parting cup, my friends!” he exclaimed—“To our next merry meeting!”
With plaudits and laughter the guests eagerly and noisily responded,—and as they drank, the pavilion was flooded by a deep crimson illumination as of fire. Every face looked blood-red!—every jewel on every woman flashed like a living flame!—for one brief instant only,—then it was gone, and there followed a general stampede of the company,—everybody hurrying as fast as they could into the carriages that waited in long lines to take them to the station, the last two ‘special’ trains to London being at one a.m. and one thirty. I bade Sibyl and her father a hurried good-night,—Diana Chesney went in the same carriage with them, full of ecstatic thanks and praise to me for the splendours of the day which she described in her own fashion as “knowing how to do it,—” and then the departing crowd of vehicles began to thunder down the avenue. As they went an arch of light suddenly [p 285] spanned Willowsmere Court from end to end of its red gables, blazing with all the colours of the rainbow, in the middle of which appeared letters of pale blue and gold, forming what I had hitherto considered as a funereal device,
“Sic transit gloria mundi! Vale!”
But, after all, it was as fairly applicable to the ephemeral splendours of a fête as it was to the more lasting marble solemnity of a sepulchre, and I thought little or nothing about it. So perfect were all the arrangements, and so admirably were the servants trained, that the guests were not long in departing,—and the grounds were soon not only empty, but dark. Not a vestige of the splendid illuminations was left anywhere,—and I entered the house fatigued, and with a dull sense of bewilderment and fear on me which I could not explain. I found Lucio alone in the smoking-room at the further end of the oak-panelled hall, a small cosily curtained apartment with a deep bay window which opened directly on to the lawn. He was standing in this embrasure with his back to me, but he turned swiftly round as he heard my steps and confronted me with such a wild, white, tortured face that I recoiled from him, startled.
“Lucio, you are ill!” I exclaimed—“you have done too much to-day.”
“Perhaps I have!” he answered in a hoarse unsteady voice, and I saw a strong shudder convulse him as he spoke,—then, gathering himself together as it were by an effort, he forced a smile—“Don’t be alarmed, my friend!—it is nothing,—nothing but the twinge of an old deep-seated malady,—a troublesome disease that is rare among men, and hopelessly incurable.”
“What is it?” I asked anxiously, for his death-like pallor alarmed me. He looked at me fixedly, his eyes dilating and darkening, and his hand fell with a heavy pressure on my shoulder.