Beyond The Rocks | Page 5

wishes. When they wanted to talk to
a woman they did, if twenty French counts or Russian princes stood in
the way! Thus it was that for the rest of the evening Theodora found
herself seated upon a sofa in close proximity to the man who had
interested her at dinner, and Mrs. McBride and Captain Fitzgerald
occupied two arm-chairs equally well placed, while the rest of the party
made general conversation.
Hector Bracondale, among other attractions, had a charming voice; it
was deep and arresting, and he had a way of looking straight into the
eyes of the person he was talking to.
Theodora knew at once he belonged to the tribe whom Sarah had told
her could never be husbands.
She wondered vaguely why, all the time she was talking to him. Why
had husbands always to be bores and unattractive, and sometimes even
simply revolting, like hers? Was it because these beautiful creatures
could not be bound to any one woman? It seemed to her
unsophisticated mind that it could be very nice to be married to one of
them; but there was no use fighting against fate, and she personally was
wedded to Josiah Brown.
Lord Bracondale's conversation pleased her. He seemed to understand
exactly what she wanted to talk about; he saw all the things she saw
and--he had read _Jean d'Agrève_!--they got to that at the end of the
first half-hour, and then she froze up a little; some instinct told her it
was dangerous ground, so she spoke suddenly of the weather, in a banal
voice.
Meanwhile, from the beginning of dinner, Lord Bracondale had been
saying to himself she was the loveliest white flower he had yet struck
in a path of varied experiences. Her eyes so innocent and true, with the
tender expression of a fawn; the perfect turn of her head and slender
pillar of a throat; her grace and gentleness, all appealed to him in a
maddening way.

"She is asleep to the whole of life's possibilities," he thought. "What
can her husband be about, and what an intoxicatingly agreeable task to
wake her up!"
He had lived among the world where the awaking of young wives, or
old wives, or any woman who could please man, was the natural course
of the day. It never even struck him then it might be a cruel thing to do.
A woman once married was always fair game; if the husband could not
retain her affections that was his lookout.
Hector Bracondale was not a brute, just an ordinary Englishman of the
world, who had lived and loved and seen many lands.
He read Theodora like an open book: he knew exactly why she had
talked about the weather after _Jean d'Agrève_. It thrilled him to see
her soft eyes dreamy and luminous when they first spoke of the book,
and it flattered him when she changed the conversation.
As for Theodora, she analyzed nothing, she only felt that perhaps she
ought not to speak about love to one of those people who could never
be husbands.
Captain Fitzgerald, meanwhile, was making tremendous headway with
the widow. He flattered her vanity, he entertained her intelligence, and
he even ended by letting her see she was causing him, personally, great
emotion.
At last this promising evening came to an end. The Russian Prince,
with his American Princess, got up to say good-night, and gradually the
party broke up, but not before Captain Fitzgerald had arranged to meet
Mrs. McBride at Doucet's in the morning, and give her the benefit of
his taste and experience in a further shopping expedition to buy old
bronzes.
"We can all breakfast together at Henry's," he said, with his grand
manner, which included the whole party; and for one instant force of
habit made Theodora's heart sink with fear at the prospect of the bill, as
it had often had to do in olden days when her father gave these royal

invitations. Then she remembered she had not been sacrificed to Josiah
Brown for nothing, and that even if dear, generous papa should happen
to be a little hard up again, a few hundred francs would be nothing to
her to slip into his hand before starting.
The rest of the party, however, declined. They were all busy elsewhere,
except Lord Bracondale and the French Count--they would come, with
pleasure, they said.
Theodora wondered what Josiah would say. Would he go? and if not,
would he let her go? This was more important.
"Then we shall meet at breakfast to-morrow," Lord Bracondale said, as
he helped her on with her cloak. "That will give me something to look
forward to."
"Will it?" she said, and there was trouble in the two blue stars which
looked up at him. "Perhaps