On our return home in the early hours, Ella sat before the fire in her cosy boudoir, her opera-cape still about her shoulders, resting her tired head upon a cushion, and staring thoughtfully into the dying embers, while I lounged near, smoking a final cigarette. Times out of number I tried to account for the Earl’s agitation when he had encountered her. It was evident they were not strangers, although when I had introduced them he treated her with studied courtesy. There were, I remembered, many suspicious incidents connected with her as yet unexplained, nevertheless, from that memorable evening when Dudley and I had dined at “The Nook” and we had become reconciled, I had never doubted that she loved me. Perhaps I had been foolish, I told myself. I ought to have obtained full explanation of the several circumstances that had caused me such uneasiness before marriage, yet I had abandoned all active effort to ascertain the truth, because of the intensity of my passion. Her beauty had captivated me; her voice held me spellbound, and because I loved her I could not bring myself to suspect her. For a long time she sat, reflecting gravely upon the events of the evening; then, shivering slightly, rose and went to her room, leaving me alone to ponder over her sudden seriousness.
Sometimes a slight shadow of suspicion would flit across my mind, as it often had on finding her absent, yet when she spoke caressingly to me I at once found myself laughing at the foolishness of my thoughts, basking in the sun of her brilliant beauty, heedless and content. Prior to our marriage, I had been madly jealous of every slight attention paid to her by one of my own sex, of whatever age, but now, recognising how marvellously fair she was, and that wherever she went she became the centre of attraction, I was no longer angry with any of our guests who paid court to her. Beck dined with us frequently, always gay and amusing, while once or twice Verblioudovitch had also accepted our invitation, and treated Ella with the courtliness of the polished diplomatist. I did not invite the latter often, because of her antipathy towards him. When, after his first visit, I had asked her what she thought of him, she had replied,—
“There is something about him I don’t like, dearest. I cannot explain what it is. Perhaps it is his excessive politeness; or it may be his profuse flattery that bores me; nevertheless, I seem to have a feeling that I ought to avoid him.”
“He’s one of the best of fellows, darling,” I said, laughing at her misgivings. “In my bachelor days we were very close friends.”
“I don’t like him,” she answered frankly. “I hate all Russians.”
“I thought you said once you would like to go to Russia?”
“Yes, I am anxious to see the country, but the Russians I have met I have always detested,” she said, adding, with seriousness, “Now that I am your wife I may speak plainly, may I not?”
“Of course, darling.”
“Then, in your own interests, promise me to avoid Paul Verblioudovitch as much as possible.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised.