“But I have committed no fault,” she said, pouting prettily.
“You have given me no satisfactory explanation.”
“Wait until after dinner. We will come out here together, where we can talk without being overheard,” she whispered hurriedly, then left me abruptly to greet Dudley and Andrew Beck. There was something significant in the swift, inquisitive glance she exchanged with the last-named man, and turning away I strode across the lawn annoyed. A moment later I met Mrs Laing herself. She was elderly and effusive; tall, and of stately bearing. Her hair was perfectly white but by no means scanty, her face was clever and refined without that grossness that too often disfigures a well-preserved woman of fifty, and in her dark eyes, undimmed by time, there was always an expression of calm contentment. Her husband had been a great traveller until his death ten years ago, and she, accompanying him on his journeys in the East, had become a clever linguist, an accomplishment which her only daughter, Ella, shared.
As we stood together chatting, and watching the boats full of happy youths and maidens gliding past in the brilliant afterglow, I thought that never had I seen Ella looking so handsome, as, standing with Dudley, she had taken up Beck’s theme, and was congratulating him upon his trip with the skittish widow.
Hers was an oval face, perfect in its symmetry, clear cut and refined, a trifle pale perhaps, but from her eyes of that darkest blue that sometimes sparkled into the brightness of a sapphire, sometimes deepened into softest grey like the sky on a summer night, there shone an inner beauty, indicative of a purity of soul. The mouth was mobile, short and full, with an exquisite finish about the curve of the lips, the nose short and straight, and the hair of darkest gold—the gold that cannot be produced artificially, but has a slight dash of red in it, just sufficient to enrich the brown of the shadows and give a burnish to the ripples in the high lights. Her eyebrows were set rather high up from the eye itself, and were slightly drooped at the corner nearest the ear, imparting to her face a kind of plaintive, questioning look that was exceedingly becoming to her. Her gown was of soft clinging silk of palest heliotrope, that bore the unmistakable stamp of Paris, while on her slim wrist I noticed she wore the diamond bangle I had given her six months before. As she chatted with Dudley, she turned and laughed at me gaily over her shoulder from time to time, and when we entered the house a few minutes later, it was with satisfaction that I found myself placed beside her at table.
Dinner was always a pleasant, if slightly stately, meal at Mrs Laing’s. She was a brilliant and accomplished hostess, whose entertainments at her house in Pont Street were always popular, and who surrounded herself with interesting and intellectual people. Bohemia was generally well represented at her receptions, for the lions of the season, whether literary, artistic, or musical, were always to be met there—a fact which induced many of the more exclusive set to honour the merry widow by their presence. Wearied, however, of the eternal small talk about new books, new plays, new pictures, and the newest fads, I was glad when, after smoking, we were free to rejoin the ladies in the quaint, oak-panelled drawing-room.
The moon had risen, and ere long I strolled with Ella through the French windows, and out upon the lawn, eager to talk alone with her.
“Well,” she said at length, when we were seated in the shadow beneath one of the high rustling elms, “so you want an explanation. What can I give?”
“Your letter conveys the suspicion that there exists some secret between Beck and yourself,” I said, as calmly as I could.
“My letter!” she exclaimed, in a voice that seemed a little harsh and strained. “What did I say? I really forget.”