Читать книгу Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 - Various - Страница 11

To the Lady Barbara, the game that she had planned seemed easy, and yet, in her first interview with her fiancé, certain difficulties appeared. Lord Farquhart presented himself, as in duty bound, late that first afternoon. Lady Barbara received him with chilly finger tips, offering him her oval cheek instead of her lips. He, ignoring the substitute, merely kissed the tapering fingers.

“I am glad to see that you are none the worse for last night’s encounter,” he said.

Wondering why his voice rang strangely, she answered, gayly:

“Rather the better for it, I find myself, thank you.”

“You told your tale of highway robbery so well that it deceived even my ears.” Lord Farquhart spoke somewhat stiffly. “I had not realized that you were so accomplished an actor.”

“Ay, did I not tell it well?” Her agreement with him held but a faint note of interrogation.

“I failed to catch your meaning, though, if meaning there was,” he said. And now his tone was so indifferent that the Lady Barbara might have been forgiven for thinking that he cared not to understand her meaning.

“I think I expressed my meaning fairly well last night,” she answered, her indifference matching his.

“Shall we let it pass at that, then?” he asked. “At that and nothing more?” If the Lady Barbara did not care to explain her joke, why should he force her?

“Ay, let us call it a jest,” she answered, “unless the point be driven in too far. A too pointed jest is sometimes a blunt weapon, my Lord Farquhart.”

Lord Farquhart heard the words that seemed so simple. He realized, also, that the tone was not so simple, but, as he told himself, the time would come soon enough when he would have to understand the Lady Barbara’s tones and manners. He would not begin until necessity compelled him. He had quite convinced himself that the story of the robbery, and the rings and rose in his coat, were naught save some silly joke of the unsophisticated schoolgirl he supposed his cousin to be. He moved restlessly in his chair. It was hard to find a simple subject to discuss with a simple country girl.

“You received the rings in safety?” he asked, merely to fill in the silence.

“Quite,” she answered, “quite in safety, my Lord Farquhart.” She was consuming herself with a rage that even she could not wholly understand. Her intended victim’s indifference angered her beyond endurance, and yet she dared not lose the hold she had not fully gained. A jest, indeed! He chose to call the whole thing a jest! A sorry jest he’d find it, then! And yet, surely, now was not the time for her to prove her power. Tapping her foot impatiently, she added in a thin, restrained voice: “Suppose we let the rings close the incident for the moment, my cousin!”

Again Lord Farquhart questioned the tone and manner, but he answered both with a shrug. The Lady Barbara was even more tiresome than he had feared. He would have to teach her that snapping eyes and quarrelsome speech were out of place in a mariage de convenance such as they were making. Doubtless he had failed to please her in some way. How he knew not. But how could he please a lady to whom he was quite indifferent, who was quite indifferent to him, and yet a lady to whom he was to be married in less than a fortnight, a whole day less than a fortnight. Lord Farquhart sighed far more deeply than was courteous to the lady.

“If I can do aught to please you, Barbara, during your stay – ” he began, with perfunctory deference, but she interrupted him hotly.

“Barbara!” she had been fuming inwardly. And only the night before it had been “Babs” and “sweetheart” and “sweet cousin”! Her wrath rose quite beyond control and her voice broke forth impetuously.

“I beg of you not to give me your time before it is necessary, my Lord Farquhart. And – and I beg you will excuse me now. I go to-night to Mistress Barry’s ball, and I – I – would rest after last night’s fatigues.”

She flounced from the room without further leave-taking, and as she fled on to her own chamber her anger escaped its bounds.

“He talks to me of jests,” she cried, with angry vehemence. “A sorry jest he’ll find it, on my word. Aie! I hate his insolent indifference. One would think I was a simple country fool to hear him talk. He – he – when I can have him hung just when it suits my good convenience! I’ll not marry him at all! Ay, but I will, though. I’ll make it worse for him by marrying him. And then I’ll show him! Just wait, my lord, until I’m Lady Farquhart and you’ll dance to a different tune, I’m thinking. Oh, I hate him, I hate him! I suppose he goes now to his Sylvia, or – or, perchance, out onto the road again.” The Lady Barbara’s tantrum had carried her into her own room and she had slammed the door. Now she found herself stopped by the opposite wall, and suddenly her tone changed. It grew quite soft, almost tender. “I wonder if his Sylvia is fairer than I am,” she said. “I wonder if he might not come to look upon me as worthy of something more than that sidewise glance.”

As for Lord Farquhart, left alone in the boudoir, he was still indifferent and still somewhat insolent, for, as he sauntered out from the room, he muttered:

“May the devil take all women save the one you happen to be in love with! And yet she’s a pretty minx, too, if she hadn’t such a vixenish temper!”

And then he hummed the last line of his song to Sylvia.