"The poor child keeps her chamber," said the earl. "She is overwrought - overwrought! I am afraid her ladyship - " He broke off abruptly, and coughed. "She is overwrought," he repeated in conclusion. "So that we dine alone."And alone they dined. Ostermore, despite the havoc suffered by his fortunes, kept an excellent table and a clever cook, and Mr. Caryll was glad to discover in his sire this one commendable trait.
The conversation was desultory throughout the repast; but when the cloth was raised and the table cleared of all but the dishes of fruit and the decanters of Oporto, Canary and Madeira, there came a moment of expansion.
Mr. Caryll was leaning back in his chair, fingering the stem of his wine-glass, watching the play of sunlight through the ruddy amber of the wine, and considering the extraordinarily odd position of a man sitting at table, by the merest chance, almost, with a father who was not aware that he had begotten him. A question from his lordship came to stir him partially from the reverie into which he was beginning to lapse.
"Do you look to make a long sojourn in England, Mr. Caryll?""It will depend," was the vague and half-unconscious answer, "upon the success of the matter I am come to transact."There ensued a brief pause, during which Mr. Caryll fell again into his abstraction.
"Where do you dwell when in France, sir?" inquired my lord, as if to make polite conversation.
Mr. Caryll lulled by his musings into carelessness, answered truthfully, "At Maligny, in Normandy."The next moment there was a tinkle of breaking glass, and Mr. Caryll realized his indiscretion and turned cold.
Lord Ostermore, who had been in the act of raising his glass, fetched it down again so suddenly that the stem broke in his fingers, and the mahogany was flooded with the liquor. Aservant hastened forward, and set a fresh glass for his lordship. That done, Ostermore signed to the man to withdraw.
The fellow went, closing the door, and leaving those two alone.
The pause had been sufficient to enable Mr. Caryll to recover, and for all that his pulses throbbed more quickly than their habit, outwardly he maintained his lazily indifferent pose, as if entirely unconscious that what he had said had occasioned his father the least disturbance.
"You - you dwelt at Maligny?" said his lordship, the usual high color all vanished from his face. And again: "You dwelt at Maligny, and - and - your name is Caryll."Mr. Caryll looked up quickly, as if suddenly aware that his lordship was expressing surprise. "Why, yes," said he. "What is there odd in that?""How does it happen that you come to live there? Are you at all connected with the family of Maligny? On your mother's side, perhaps?"Mr. Caryll took up his wine-glass. "I take it," said he easily, "that there was some such family at some time. But it is clear it must have fallen upon evil days." He sipped at his wine. "There are none left now," he explained, as he set down his glass. "The last of them died, I believe, in England." His eyes turned full upon the earl, but their glance seemed entirely idle. "It was in consequence of that that my father was enabled to purchase the estate."Mr. Caryll accounted it no lie that he suppressed the fact that the father to whom he referred was but his father by adoption.
Relief spread instantly upon Lord Ostermore's countenance.
Clearly, he saw, here was pure coincidence, and nothing more.
Indeed, what else should there have been? What was it that he had feared? He did not know. Still he accounted it an odd matter, and said so.
"What is odd?" inquired Mr. Caryll. "Does it happen that your lordship was acquainted at any time with that vanished family?""I was, sir - slightly acquainted - at one time with one or two of its members. 'Tis that that is odd. You see, sir, my name, too, happens to be Caryll.""True - yet I see nothing so oddly coincident in the matter, particularly if your acquaintance with these Malignys was but slight.""Indeed, you are right. You are right. There is no such great coincidence, when all is said. The name reminded me of a - a folly of my youth. 'Twas that that made impression.""A folly?" quoth Mr. Caryll, his eyebrows raised.
"Ay, a folly - a folly that went near undoing me, for had it come to my father's ears, he had broke me without mercy. He was a hard man, my father; a puritan in his ideas.""A greater than your lordship?" inquired Mr. Caryll blandly, masking the rage that seethed in him.
His lordship laughed. "Ye're a wag, Mr. Caryll - a damned wag!" Then reverting to the matter that was uppermost in his mind. "'Tis a fact, though - 'pon honor. My father would ha' broke me. Luckily she died."
"Who died?" asked Mr. Caryll, with a show of interest.
"The girl. Did I not tell you there was a girl? 'Twas she was the folly - Antoinette de Maligny. But she died - most opportunely, egad! 'Twas a very damned mercy that she did. It - cut the - the - what d'ye call it - knot?""The Gordian knot?" suggested Mr. Caryll.
"Ay - the Gordian knot. Had she lived and had my father smoked the affair - Gad! he would ha' broke me; he would so!"he repeated, and emptied his glass.
Mr. Caryll, white to the lips, sat very still a moment. Then he did a curious thing; did it with a curious suddenness. He took a knife from the table, and hacked off the lowest button from his coat. This he pushed across the board to his father.
"To turn to other matters," said he; "there is the letter you were expecting from abroad.""Eh? What?" Lord Ostermore took up the button. It was of silk, interwoven with gold thread. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it with a heavy eye, and then at his guest. "Eh? Letter?" he muttered, puzzled.
"If your lordship will cut that open, you will see what his majesty has to propose." He mentioned the king in a voice charged with suggestion, so that no doubt could linger on the score of the king he meant.
"Gad!" cried his lordship. "Gad! 'Twas thus ye bubbled Mr. Green? Shrewd, on my soul. And you are the messenger, then?""I am the messenger," answered Mr. Caryll coldly.
"And why did you not say so before?"
For the fraction of a second Mr. Caryll hesitated. Then:
"Because I did not judge that the time was come," said he.
