PAGE 14
The Blue Curtains
by
“O Lord, what a lie!” groaned the distracted Bottles.
“I thought, Sir Eustace,” murmured Madeline in her sweet low voice, “that you told me not very long ago that you never meant to marry.”
“Nor did I, Madeline, because I thought there was no chance of my marrying you” (“which I am sure I hope there isn’t,” he added to himself). “But–but, Madeline, I love you.” (“Heaven forgive me for that!”) “Listen to me, Madeline, before you answer,” and he drew his chair closer to her own. “I feel the loneliness of my position, and I want to get married. I think that we should suit each other very well. At our age, now that our youth is past” (he could not resist this dig, at which Madeline winced), “probably neither of us would wish to marry anybody much our junior. I have had many opportunities lately, Madeline, of seeing the beauty of your character, and to the beauties of your person no man could be blind. I can offer you a good position, a good fortune, and myself, such as I am. Will you take me?” and he laid his hand upon hers and gazed earnestly into her eyes.
“Really, Sir Eustace,” she murmured, “this is so very unexpected and sudden.”
“Yes, Madeline, I know it is. I have no right to take you by storm in this way, but I trust you will not allow my precipitancy to weight against me. Take a little time to think it over–a week say” (“by which time,” he reflected, “I hope to be in Algiers.”) “Only, if you can, Madeline, tell me that I may hope.”
She made no immediate answer, but, letting her hands fall idly in her lap, looked straight before her, her beautiful eyes fixed upon vacancy, and her mind amply occupied in considering the pros and cons of the situation. Then Sir Eustace took heart of grace; bending down, he kissed the Madonna-like face. Still there was no response. Only very gently she pushed him from her, whispering:
“Yes, Eustace, I think I shall be able to tell you that you may hope.”
Bottles waited to see no more. With set teeth and flaming eyes he crept, a broken man, through the door that led on to the landing, crept down the stairs and into the hall. On the pegs were his hat and coat; he took them and passed into the street.
“I have done a disgraceful thing,” he thought, “and I have paid for it.”
Softly as the door closed Sir Eustace heard it; and then he too left the room, murmuring, “I shall soon come for my answer, Madeline.”
When he reached the street his brother was gone.
VI
Sir Eustace did not go straight back to the Albany, but, calling a hansom, drove down to his club.
“Well,” he thought to himself, “I have played a good many curious parts in my time, but I never had to do with anything like this before. I only hope George is not much cut up. His eyes ought to be opened now. What a woman—-” but we will not repeat Sir Eustace’s comments upon the lady to whom he was nominally half engaged.
At the club Sir Eustace met his friend the Under-Secretary, who had just escaped from the House. Thanks to information furnished to him that morning by Bottles, who had been despatched by Sir Eustace, in a penitent mood, to the Colonial Office to see him, he had just succeeded in confusing, if not absolutely in defeating, the impertinent people who “wanted to know.” Accordingly he was jubilant, and greeted Sir Eustace with enthusiasm, and they sat talking together for an hour or more.
Then Sir Eustace, being, as has been said, of early habits, made his way home.
In his sitting-room he found his brother smoking and contemplating the fire.
“Hullo, old fellow!” he said, “I wish you had come to the club with me. Atherleigh was there, and is delighted with you. What you told him this morning enabled him to smash up his enemies, and as the smashing lately has been rather the other way he is jubilant. He wants you to go to see him again to-morrow. Oh, by the way, you made your escape all right. I only hope I may be as lucky. Well, what do you think of your lady-love now?”