“Yes, that’s all very well; but if I let Celia go without a word, she may think that I am indifferent to her. I feel that if I do not come to some understanding with her now, while her heart is free and she is unspoilt by flattery and adulation, I may lose her for ever. You speak so coolly, Karne. Have you never had a love-affair of your own? Cannot you understand how I feel?”
He spoke impetuously, and did not stop to think that his question was, perhaps, a presumptuous one. Although they had been friends for so long a time, Herbert had never been confidential so for as his affaires du cœur were concerned, and love was a subject he had hitherto tabooed. Yet to his nature love was a necessary adjunct, and without it his life would have been incomplete.
“My love affair was a fiasco,” he said slowly, while his face assumed a hard expression. “It is a painful subject to me, Geoffrey, and that is why I have never spoken about it. Some day, perhaps, I will tell you all, but not now. I am paying the penalty of it even yet; and therefore I am doubly anxious that Celia’s happiness should be assured. It is much better, so much better, to wait a few short years, than to make a lifelong mistake such as mine has been.”
Geoffrey Milnes was surprised and moved; and his face lit up with ready sympathy. He knew that there was some secret at the back of Herbert Karne’s life, some trouble that was continually weighing him down: and though he would have been glad to have found out what it was, so that, if possible, he might have helped his friend, he had the tact not to press for his confidence just then, but to wait until it was voluntarily given.
The drawing-room door was opened, and they heard the hum of voices on the stairs. Celia’s silvery laugh floated towards them; she was coming up to search for the deserters.
“Well, I will take your advice and say nothing to Celia at present,” Geoffrey said hurriedly, as he handled his cue and sent the balls rolling over the table. “But I am in earnest, Karne, and I shall remind you of this at some future time.”
The door was opened sharply, and Gladys Milnes entered with a bounce.
“There they are, the truants!” she exclaimed, as Celia followed more leisurely. “We all think it extremely rude of you to desert us in this unchivalrous manner. Lady Marjorie wants you to come and hear Miss Stannard recite. It’s something very tragic, so Celia and I thought we had better take our leave in case we were overcome with our emotions. The last time we heard her recite, we exploded in the middle of it, and she hasn’t forgiven us yet. Father said it was very bad manners, but we couldn’t help it, for Miss Stannard’s tragic recitations are too funny for anything. Come on, Geoff, you can sit just inside the drawing-room near the door, and Celia and I will stand outside and pull faces at you. I bet you anything we’ll make you laugh, especially when Miss Stannard comes to the part about the ‘ruddy gore,’ and the ‘br-r-reaking hear-r-rt.’ Won’t we, Celia?”
“Don’t be so silly, Gladys,” admonished her brother severely; “you get more babyish every day.”
He switched off the electric light, and they passed down the shallow staircase.