Part 34

‘Both in purse and in person, like the ill-used hostess of the Garter.’

‘A lady to whom I have been a staunch friend,’ continued Havill, not heeding the interruption.

At that moment sounds seemed to come from Dare which bore a remarkable resemblance to the words, ‘Ho, ho, Havill!’ It was hardly credible, and yet, could he be mistaken? Havill turned. Dare’s eye was twisted comically upward.

‘What does that mean?’ said Havill coldly, and with some amazement.

‘Ho, ho, Havill! “Staunch friend” is good--especially after “an iconoclast and Vandal by blood”--“monstrosity in the form of a Greek temple,” and so on, eh!’

‘Sir, you have the advantage of me. Perhaps you allude to that anonymous letter?’

‘O-ho, Havill!’ repeated the boy-man, turning his eyes yet further towards the zenith. ‘To an outsider such conduct would be natural; but to a friend who finds your pocket-book, and looks into it before returning it, and kindly removes a leaf bearing the draft of a letter which might injure you if discovered there, and carefully conceals it in his own pocket--why, such conduct is unkind!’ Dare held up the abstracted leaf.

Havill trembled. ‘I can explain,’ he began.

‘It is not necessary: we are friends,’ said Dare assuringly.

Havill looked as if he would like to snatch the leaf away, but altering his mind, he said grimly: ‘Well, I take you at your word: we are friends. That letter was concocted before I knew of the competition: it was during my first disgust, when I believed myself entirely supplanted.’

‘I am not in the least surprised. But if she knew YOU to be the writer!’

‘I should be ruined as far as this competition is concerned,’ said Havill carelessly. ‘Had I known I was to be invited to compete, I should not have written it, of course. To be supplanted is hard; and thereby hangs a tale.’

‘Another tale? You astonish me.’

‘Then you have not heard the scandal, though everybody is talking about it.’

‘A scandal implies indecorum.’

‘Well, ‘tis indecorous. Her infatuated partiality for him is patent to the eyes of a child; a man she has only known a few weeks, and one who obtained admission to her house in the most irregular manner! Had she a watchful friend beside her, instead of that moonstruck Mrs. Goodman, she would be cautioned against bestowing her favours on the first adventurer who appears at her door. It is a pity, a great pity!’

‘O, there is love-making in the wind?’ said Dare slowly. ‘That alters the case for me. But it is not proved?’

‘It can easily be proved.’

‘I wish it were, or disproved.’

‘You have only to come this way to clear up all doubts.’

Havill took the lad towards the tent, from which the strains of a waltz now proceeded, and on whose sides flitting shadows told of the progress of the dance. The companions looked in. The rosy silk lining of the marquee, and the numerous coronas of wax lights, formed a canopy to a radiant scene which, for two at least of those who composed it, was an intoxicating one. Paula and Somerset were dancing together.

‘That proves nothing,’ said Dare.

‘Look at their rapt faces, and say if it does not,’ sneered Havill.

Dare objected to a judgment based on looks alone.

‘Very well--time will show,’ said the architect, dropping the tent-curtain.... ‘Good God! a girl worth fifty thousand and more a year to throw herself away upon a fellow like that--she ought to be whipped.’

‘Time must NOT show!’ said Dare.

‘You speak with emphasis.’

‘I have reason. I would give something to be sure on this point, one way or the other. Let us wait till the dance is over, and observe them more carefully. Horensagen ist halb gelogen! Hearsay is half lies.’