Prince Fortunatus by William Black (ebook reader with highlighter TXT) 📖

a steady and respectable life?"

He breathed more freely when he was outside; here, in the crowd, if he met any one to whom he did not wish to speak, he could be engaged with his companion and pass on without recognition. He proposed to Miss Burgoyne that they should walk home, by way of Piccadilly and Park Lane, and that young lady cheerfully assented. It was quite a pleasant afternoon, for London in midwinter. The setting sun shone with a dull-copper lustre along the fronts of the tall buildings, and over the trees of the Green Park hung clouds that were glorified by the intervening red-hued mists. The air was crisp and cold--what a blessing it was to be able to breathe!

Lionel was silent and absorbed; he only said, "Yes?" "Really!" "Indeed!" in answer to the vivacious chatter of his companion, who was in the most animated spirits. His brows were drawn down; his look was more sombre than it ought to have been, considering who was with him. Perhaps he was thinking of the crowded rooms they had recently left, and of the friends who might now be arriving there, from whom he had voluntarily isolated himself. Had they, had any one of them, counselled him to keep within his own sphere? Well, he had taken that advice; here he was--walking with Miss Burgoyne!

All of a sudden that young lady stopped and turned to the window of a jeweller's shop; and of course he followed. No wonder her eyes had been attracted; here were all kinds of beautiful things and splendors--tiaras, coronets, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, earrings, bangles, brooches--set with all manner of precious stones, the clear, radiant diamond, the purple amethyst, the sea-green emerald, the mystic opal, the blue-black sapphire, the clouded pearl. Her raptured vision wandered from tray to tray, but it was a comparatively trifling article that finally claimed her attention--a tiny finger-ring set with small rubies and brilliants.

"Oh, do look at this!" she said to her companion. "Did you ever see such a love of a ring?--what a perfect engagement-ring it would make!"

Then what mad, half-sullen, half-petulant, and wholly reckless impulse sprang into his brain!

"Well, will you wear that as an engagement-ring, if I give it to you?" he asked.

She looked up, startled, amused, but not displeased.

"Why, really--really--that is a question to ask!" she exclaimed.

"Come along in and see if it fits your finger--come along!" and therewith Miss Burgoyne, a little bewildered and still inclined to laugh, found herself at the jeweller's counter. Was it a joke? Oh, certainly not. Lionel was quite serious and matter of fact. The tray was produced. The ring was taken out. For a moment she hesitated as to which finger to try it on, but overcame that shyness and placed it on the third finger of her left hand and said it fitted admirably.

"Just keep it where it is, then," he said; and then he added a word or two to the jeweller, whom he knew; and he and his companion left the shop.

"Oh, Lionel, what an idea!" said Miss Burgoyne, with her eyes bent modestly on the pavement. "If I had fancied you knew that man, do you think I would ever have entered the place? What must he think? What would any one think?--an engagement in the middle of the streets of London!"

"Plenty of witnesses to the ceremony, that's all," said he, lightly.

Nay, was there not a curious sense of possession, now that he walked alongside this little, bright person in the magnificent furs? He had acquired something by this simple transaction; he would be less lonely now; he would mate with his kind. But he did not choose to look far into the future. Here he was walking along Piccadilly, with a cheerful and smiling and prettily costumed young lady by his side who had just been so kind as to accept an engagement-ring from him, and what more could he want?

"Lionel," she said, still with modestly downcast eyes, "this mustn't be known to any human being--no, not to a single human being--not yet, I mean. I will get a strip of white india-rubber to cover the ring, so that no one shall be able to see it on the stage."

Perhaps he recalled the fact that recently she had been wearing another ring similarly concealed from the public gaze; or perhaps he had forgotten that little circumstance. What did it matter? Did anything matter? He only knew he had pledged himself to marry Kate Burgoyne--enough.


CHAPTER XX.


IN DIRER STRAITS.

Now, when a young man, in whatever wayward mood of petulance or defiance or wounded self-love, chooses to play tricks with his own fate, he is pretty sure to discover that sooner or later he has himself to reckon with--his other and saner self that will arise and refuse to be silenced. And this awakening came almost directly to Lionel Moore. Even as he went down to the theatre that same evening, he began to wonder whether Miss Burgoyne would really be wearing the ring he had given her. Or would she not rather consider the whole affair a joke?--not a very clever joke, indeed, but at least something to be put on one side and forgotten. She had been inclined to laugh at the idea of two people becoming engaged to each other in the middle of the London streets. A life-pledge offered and accepted in front of a window in Piccadilly!--why, such was the way of comic opera, not of the actual world. Jests of that kind were all very well in the theatre, but they were best confined to the stage. And would not Miss Burgoyne understand that on a momentary impulse he had yielded to a fit of half-sullen recklessness, and would she not be quite ready and willing to release him?

But when, according to custom, he went into her room that evening, he soon became aware that Miss Burgoyne did not at all treat this matter as a jest.

"See!" she said to him, with a becoming shyness--and she showed him how cleverly she had covered her engagement-ring with a little band of flesh-tinted india-rubber, "No one will be able to see it? and I sha'n't have to take it off at all. Why, I could play Galatea, and not a human being would notice that the statue was wearing a ring!"

She seemed very proud and pleased and happy, though she spoke in an undertone, for Jane was within earshot. As for him, he did not say anything. Of course he was bound to stand by what he had done and suffer the consequences, whatever they might be. When he left the room and went up-stairs into the wings, it was in a vague sort of stupefaction; but here were the immediate exigencies of the stage, and perhaps it was better not to look too far ahead.

But it was with just a little sense of shame that he found, when the piece was over, and they were ready to leave the theatre, that Miss Burgoyne expected him to accompany her on her way home. If only he had had sufficient courage, he might have said to her,

"Look here; we are engaged to be married, and I'm not going to back out; I will fulfil my promise whenever you please. But for goodness' sake don't expect me to play the lover--off the stage as well as on. Sweethearting is a silly sort of business; don't we have enough every evening before the footlights? Let us conduct ourselves as rational human creatures--when we're not paid to make fools of ourselves. What good will it do if I drive home with you in this hansom? Do you expect me to put my arm round your waist? No, thanks; there isn't much novelty in that kind of thing for Grace Mainwaring and Harry Thornhill."

And when eventually they did arrive in Edgeware Road, she could not induce him to enter the house and have some bit of supper with herself and her brother Jim.

"What are you going to do to-morrow, then?" she asked. "Will you call for me in the morning and go to church with me?"

"I don't think I shall stir out to-morrow," he said, "I feel rather out of sorts; and I fancy I may try what a day in bed will do."

"How can you expect to be well if you sit up all night playing cards?" she demanded, with reason on her side. "However, there's to be no more of that now. So you won't come in--not for a quarter of an hour?"

She rang the bell.

"Oh, Lionel, by the way, do you think Jim should know?" she asked, with her eyes cast down in maiden modesty.

"Just as you like," he answered.

"Why, you don't seem to take any interest!" she exclaimed, with a pout. "I wonder what Percy Miles will say when he hears of it. Oh, my goodness, I'm afraid to think!"

"What he will say won't matter very much," Lionel remarked, indifferently.

"Poor boy! I'm sorry for him," she said, apparently with a little compunction, perhaps even regret.

The door was opened by her brother.

"Sure you won't come in?" she finally asked. "Well, I shall be at home all to-morrow afternoon, if you happen to be up in this direction. Good-night!"

"Good-night," said he, taking her outstretched hand for a second; then he turned and walked away. There had not been much love-making--so far.

But he did not go straight to his lodgings. He wandered away aimlessly through the dark streets. He felt sick at heart--not especially because of this imbroglio into which he had walked with open eyes, for that did not seem to matter much, one way or the other. But everything appeared to have gone wrong with him since Nina had left; and the worst of it was that he was gradually ceasing to care how things went, right or wrong. At this moment, for example, he ought to have been thinking of the situation he had created for himself, and resolving either to get out of it before more harm was done, or to loyally fulfil his contract by cultivating what affection for Miss Burgoyne was possible in the circumstances. But he was not thinking of Miss Burgoyne at all. He was thinking of Nina. He was thinking how hard it was that whenever his fancy went in search of her--away to Malta, to Australia, to the United States, as it might be--he could not hope to find a Nina whom he could recognize. For she would be quite changed now. His imagination could not picture to himself a Nina grown grave and sad-eyed, perhaps furtively hiding her sorrow, fearing to encounter her friends. The Nina whom he had always known was a light-hearted and laughing companion, eagerly talkative, a smile on her parted lips, affection, kindliness ever present in her shining, soft, dark eyes. Sometimes silent, too; sometimes, again, singing a fragment of one of the old familiar folk-songs of her youth. What was that one with the refrain, "Io te voglio bene assaje, e tu non pienz' a me"?--


"La notta tutte dormeno,
E io che buo dormire!
Pensanno a Nenna mia
Mme sent' ascevoli.
Li quarte d' ora sonano
A uno, a doje e tre...
Io te voglio bene assaje,
E tu non pienz' a me!"


--Look, now, at this