Stephen added to other remarkable qualities that of an able and self-possessed liar. In business he was considered straight even by gentlemen, foolishly strait-laced by men of business. But to certain persons, and the Duchess was one of them, he never spoke the truth. He was wont to say that any lies he told he did not intend to account for, in this world or the next; and that the bill, if there was one, would never be sent in to him. He certainly had the courage of his convictions.
"I want you to think twice of the disappointment you have given us all by not coming to us in Scotland this autumn. The Duke was really quite put out. He had so reckoned on your coming."
Stephen did not answer. He had a colossal power of silence when it suited him. He had liked the Duke for several years before he had made the acquaintance of his family. The two men had met frequently on business, understood each other, and had almost reached friendship when the Duchess intervened, to ply her "savage trade." Since then a shade of distant politeness had tinged the Duke's manner towards Stephen, and the self-made man, sensitive to anything that resembled a sense of difference of class, instinctively drew away from him. Yet, if Stephen had but known it, the change in the Duke's manner was only owing to the unformulated suspicion that the father sometimes feels for the man, however eligible, whom he suspects of filching from him his favourite daughter.
"We are all disappointed," continued the Duchess, and her power of hitting on the raw did not fail her, for her victim winced—not perceptibly. She went on: "Do think of it again, Mr Vanbrunt. If you could see Larinnen in autumn—the autumn tints, you know—and no party. Just ourselves. And I am sure from your face you are a lover of Nature."
"I hate Nature," said Stephen. "It bores me. I am very easily bored."
He was longing to get away from London, to steep his soul in the sympathy of certain solitary woodland places he knew of, shy as himself; where perhaps the strain on his aching spirit might relax somewhat, where he could lie in the shade for hours, and listen to running water, and forget that he was a plain, middle-aged millionaire, whom a brilliant, exquisite creature could not love for himself.
"When I said no party I did not mean quite alone," said the Duchess, breathing heavily, for a frontal attack is generally also an uphill one. "A few cheerful friends. How right you are! One does not see enough of one's real friends. Anne often says that. She said to me only yesterday, when we were talking of you——"
The two liars were interrupted by the advance towards them of Anne and De Rivaz. They came silently across the shadowy grass, into the little ring of light thrown by the Chinese lantern.
De Rivaz was evidently excited. His worn, cynical face looked boyish in the garish light.
"Duchess," he said, "I have only just heard by chance from Lady Anne, that the unknown divinity whom I am turning heaven and earth to find, in order that I may paint her, has actually been staying under your roof, and that you intend to ask her again."