Nevertheless he felt filled with a vague irritation. Did she think him such a fool as to imperil her safety by openly recognizing her without her consent? Did she think that he would dare to presume upon the service she had done him? Or, more outrageous thought, had she heard of his disgrace, known its cause, and feared that he would drag her into a disclosure to save himself? No, no; she could not think that! She had perhaps regretted what she had done in a freak of girlish chivalry; she had returned to her old feelings and partisanship; she was only startled at meeting the single witness of her folly. Well, she need not fear! He would as studiously avoid her hereafter, and she should know it. And yet--yes, there was a "yet." For he could not forget--indeed, in the past three weeks it had been more often before him than he cared to think--that she was the one human being who had been capable of a great act of self-sacrifice for him--her enemy, her accuser, the man who had scarcely treated her civilly. He was ashamed to remember now that this thought had occurred to him at the bedside of his wife--at the hour of her escape--even on the fatal slope on which he had been struck down. And now this fond illusion must go with the rest--the girl who had served him so loyally was ashamed of it! A bitter smile crossed his face.
"Well, I don't wonder! Here are all the women asking me who is that good-looking Mephistopheles, with the burning eyes, who is prowling around my rooms as if searching for a victim. Why, you're smiling for all the world like poor Jim when he used to do the Red Avenger."
Susy's voice--and illustration--recalled him to himself.
"Furious I may be," he said with a gentler smile, although his eyes still glittered, "furious that I have to wait until the one woman I came to see--the one woman I have not seen for so long, while these puppets have been nightly dancing before her--can give me a few moments from them, to talk of the old days."
In his reaction he was quite sincere, although he felt a slight sense of remorse as he saw the quick, faint color rise, as in those old days, even through the to-night's powder of her cheek.
"That's like the old Kla'uns," she said, with a slight pressure of his arm, "but we will not have a chance to speak until later. When they are nearly all gone, you'll take me to get a little refreshment, and we'll have a chat in the conservatory. But you must drop that awfully wicked look and make yourself generally agreeable to those women until then."
It was, perhaps, part of this reaction which enabled him to obey his hostess' commands with a certain recklessness that, however, seemed to be in keeping with the previous Satanic reputation he had all unconsciously achieved. The women listened to the cynical flippancy of this good-looking soldier with an undisguised admiration which in turn excited curiosity and envy from his own sex. He saw the whispered questioning, the lifted eyebrows, scornful shrugging of shoulders--and knew that the story of his disgrace was in the air. But I fear this only excited him to further recklessness and triumph. Once he thought he recognized Miss Faulkner's figure at a distance, and even fancied that she had been watching him; but he only redoubled his attentions to the fair woman beside him, and looked no more.
Yet he was glad when the guests began to drop off, the great rooms thinned, and Susy, appearing on the arm of her husband, coquettishly reminded him of his promise.
"For I want to talk to you of old times. General Brant," she went on, turning explanatorily to Boompointer, "married my adopted mother in California--at Robles, a dear old place where I spent my earliest years. So, you see, we are sort of relations by marriage," she added, with delightful naivete.
Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a smile on his lips. He felt he had already become a part of the irresponsible comedy played around him. Why should he resist, or examine its ethics too closely? He offered his arm to Susy as they descended the stairs, but, instead of pausing in the supper-room, she simply passed through it with a significant pressure on his arm, and, drawing aside a muslin curtain, stepped into the moonlit conservatory. Behind the curtain there was a small rustic settee; without releasing his arm she sat down, so that when he dropped beside her, their hands met, and mutually clasped.
"Now, Kla'uns," she said, with a slight, comfortable shiver as she nestled beside him, "it's a little like your chair down at old Robles, isn't it?--tell me! And to think it's five years ago!
But, Kla'uns, what's the matter? You are changed," she said, looking at his dark face in the moonlight, "or you have something to tell me."
"I have."
"And it's something dreadful, I know!" she said, wrinkling her brows with a pretty terror. "Couldn't you pretend you had told it to me, and let us go on just the same? Couldn't you, Kla'uns?
Tell me!"
"I am afraid I couldn't," he said, with a sad smile.
"Is it about yourself, Kla'uns? You know," she went on with cheerful rapidity, "I know everything about you--I always did, you know--and I don't care, and never did care, and it don't, and never did, make the slightest difference to me. So don't tell it, and waste time, Kla'uns."
"It's not about me, but about my wife!" he said slowly.
Her expression changed slightly "Oh, her!" she said after a pause. Then, half-resignedly, "Go on, Kla'uns."
