The Rake's Progress - Bowen Marjorie

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are they doing?" he demanded.

      "My lady is weeping—and Marius—raving like the boy he is."

      The Earl leant back.

      "They blame me, Susannah—curse me, I think, make me the thief of their happiness, and—" he checked himself. "I am to blame, but I will repay."

      "How?" she asked, and her voice was almost frightened.

      Again he gave her his stormy grey eyes.

      "Marius is in love," he smiled, not softly. "Principally my lady thinks of that—spendthrift, you, she says, ruining this romance—well, Marius must not be a pauper either for this love or the next, and so——"

      "And so—what?" breathed Miss Chressham.

      "I must mend my fortunes even as I ruined them—I must resort to an expedient not pleasant—but I keep you standing"—he rose, his glance sought the clock—"and it is late."

      "I know what you mean to do," said Miss Chressham. "And if I had been one with any claim on you"—she checked herself for fear of the extravagant—"I cannot understand how they can force you," she finished.

      "They do not think of me," answered Lord Lyndwood. "My lady considers Marius, and Marius himself—I have done nothing that they should think of me."

      "But you take the obligation of their future upon you," cried Susannah Chressham.

      He answered her in the spirit of the words he had written to Miss Boyle.

      "I am the elder—it is but decent; and, after all," he turned to her with a touch of his usual lightness, "'tis the fashion to marry for money."

      That glimpse of his old self unnerved her utterly.

      "Oh, Rose," she protested in trembling accents, "think what you are doing—why should you sell yourself because of Marius?"

      The Earl was silent; Miss Chressham looked at him a little space, then moved towards the window.

      "But as you say," she said in another and heavier tone, "everyone does it, and perhaps you do not care."

      As she finished her glance fell on the letter lying on the little desk between them, and she saw the name on it.

      "Ah!" she added swiftly. "Do you care?"

      He answered the eager look in her hazel eyes.

      "Enough not to wish to speak of it," he said quietly. "Enough to ask you to forget that I have said even that——"

      "This for Marius!" she cried, hardly knowing what she did or what words she spoke.

      "Nay, for myself," he answered recklessly, "that I may not hear their reproaches all my days—it had to be—by Gad, we cannot hope to end our lives in fairy tales."

      He picked up the letter and put it in his pocket.

      "Tell my lady to rest tranquil and Marius that he shall not starve—and for yourself—thank you, my sweet cousin."

      She turned her head away.

      "You will stay here to-night?"

      "No, I do not need to sleep to-night."

      "You have been riding all day—you cannot go back—like this."

      She made an effort to look at him now; he was taking his hat and gloves from the chair where he had thrown them on his entry.

      "I shall walk to Brenton and get a horse there; I must be in London as soon as may be."

      He put on his cloak over his bright shining dress and fastened the heavy clasps.

      "You will leave them, like this?" asked Miss Chressham.

      "There is no more to say," he answered.

      "You will think hardly of them," said Susannah; her voice, her eyes, her pose expressed intense excitement.

      Rose Lyndwood smiled.

      "Nay, I am the culprit;" he hesitated a moment, then his voice fell beautifully soft, "do not you think hardly of me?"

      "I!" she smiled bravely; "I—I understand."

      "I will write soon, to you and to my lady."

      He moved towards the window, and the sweet breeze stirred the loose hair on his forehead.

      Miss Chressham followed him.

      "We shall see you again?" She bit her lip, and the colour rose under her eyes.

      "Ah, soon." He took her hand and kissed it; she saw the white corner of the letter addressed to Miss Boyle showing from the glimmering brocade of his waistcoat, and her mouth tightened.

      "My duty to my lady," said the Earl; "and—you will know what to tell them—good-night."

      His tone, his smile were endearments; to her alone that evening had he shown anything of his usual manner; this his thanks for her patient sympathy.

      "Good-night," she answered.

      He stepped out on to the terrace; the moon was directly overhead and the trees mighty with black shadows; the white flowers looked as if carved out of silver, and the red tulips, half seen, seemed to pulse in the obscurity of the shade cast by the gleaming balustrade.

      Rose Lyndwood looked up at the house; in his mother's room burnt a pale light; he glanced down again at Miss Chressham standing before the ruddy candle glow of the chamber he had just left; bright colour showed in her scarlet dress, in her heated cheeks and brilliant eyes; she had one hand on her bosom, and her slack fingers were soft and fair.

      "Good-night," he said again, and turned away towards the shallow steps.

      Miss Chressham watched him go; the stillness was, to her, rent with voices—Marius speaking in the hot bitterness of youth, Lady Lyndwood weeping complaining words, the soft tones of Selina Boyle and the sad laugh of Rose Lyndwood.

      "Rose Lyndwood." She repeated the name to herself, then closed the window and drew the heavy curtain across the prospect of the stars.

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      The clear, kindly morning sun lay over the straight handsome houses in Bedford Row and dazzled in the white dust of the wide street.

      From the stucco porticoes of the mansions slanting shadows were cast over the doors. A woman in a blue cap crying "Chairs to mend!" moved slowly along; a few passers-by were gathered, with an air of curiosity, about an elegant green curricle that waited outside a house in no way different from the others, save that the shutters were up in every window but those on the second floor.

      This equipage excited attention, not only by the manifest splendour of the white horses, the sumptuous livery of the footman, and the gold-plated harness, but by the fact that the small crest on the body of the chariot was that of the famous Lord Lyndwood, a name they all knew as that of the most brilliant personage in that brilliant but vague world of fashion that sparkled somewhere beyond their vision.

      At one of the unshuttered windows stood the owner of the green chariot, observing languidly the prospect of the wide sunny street, broken by the little knot of people about the curricle, and the slow-moving figure of the chair-mender, with her slender bundle of canes under her arm.

      Rose Lyndwood saw these things as a bright, expressionless picture. Even the blue

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