The child in her once more came to the surface. “I 've longed to see a giraffe all my life,” she cried, and she accompanied him blissfully.
After leaving her at the hotel, Herold went home and suffered the torments of a soul on fire. Tragedy lay ahead. Stellamaris, star of the sea, steadfast as a star—he knew her. Love had come to her not in the fluttering Cupid guise in which he visits most of the sweet maidens among mortals, but in the strong, godlike essence in which alone he dare approach the great ones. The sea-foam and mist formed but a garment for this creature of infinite sky and eternal sea. They but shrouded or touched to glamour the elemental strength.
She had given her love to John Risca, her Great High Belovedest. God knows what dreams she had woven about him; the man's fine loyalty asserted his friend's worthiness of any woman's dreams. The only, and the hideous, consideration was the fact of John being tied for life to the unspeakable. Himself and the pain of his love he put aside. What were the unimportant sufferings of a thousand such as he compared with one pang that might shoot through the bosom of Stellamaris? What could be done to avert the tragedy? His faith in John Risca was absolute. But John had shut his eyes to the glory shimmering in front of them. His eyes must be opened. Stellamaris must be told. All foundations of the Unwritten Law would have to be swept away, and she would survey in terror the piteous wreckage of the whole fabric of her life.
How could he save her? How could he save her from inevitable pain?
CHAPTER XVII
THE next morning Stella was putting on her hat, a foamy thing of white tulle and pink roses, before her mirror, when an audacious thought came dancing into her head. It dizzied her for a moment, and took away her breath. With throbbing heart, she stood looking into her own wide eyes, which were filled with delicious excitement.
It would be a great adventure. Why should she not embark on it? She was free till luncheon, her uncle and aunt having gone out on their own errands and left her to the rest they supposed she needed. But she felt strong, pulsatingly strong. She looked out of the window. The June sunshine allured her. Why should she sit indoors on such a morning? There was not the faintest shadow of a reason. But how should she reach her destination? Her mind worked swiftly. Sir Oliver had set out on foot, bound for Bond Street and Piccadilly. Lady Blount had declared her intention to renew the joys of her youth, and go about in a hansom, which had been procured for her with some difficulty by the magnificent commissionnaire. The motor was at Stella's service. She had only to order it, and it would come to the front door and carry her whithersoever she desired.
It would be a wild adventure to feel herself alone and independent in this welter of London, and then, more thrilling still, to burst in upon her Great High Belovedest, not in his palace,—that, alas! he had given, up,—but in his Great High Mansion at Kilburn.