The Knave of Diamonds | Page 8

jaw looked as though fashioned in iron.
"Come!" he said again.
She made a slight forward movement as if to yield, and then drew back again. "Really, I had better wait and go with my husband," she said.
"You had better not!" he said with emphasis. "I have just seen him. He is in the smoke-room. I won't tell you what he is like. You probably know. But if you are a wise woman you will leave him for Damer to look after, and come with me."
That decided her. She threw the hood of her cloak over her head and turned in silence to the door.
Errol paused to pull on an overcoat and then followed her on to the steps. A large covered motor had just glided up. He handed her into it. "By Jove, you are cold!" he said.
She made no rejoinder.
He stepped in beside her, after a word with the chauffeur, and shut the door.
Almost instantly they were in motion, and in another moment were shooting forward swiftly down the long, ill-lighted street.
Anne Carfax sank back in her corner and lay motionless. The glare of the little electric lamp upon her face showed it white and tired. Her eyes were closed.
The man beside her sat bolt upright, his eyes fixed unblinkingly upon the window in front, his jaw set grimly. He held the gloves he had worn all the evening between his hands, and his fingers worked at them unceasingly. He was rending the soft kid to ribbons.
They left the desolate street behind and came into total darkness.
Suddenly, but very quietly, Anne spoke. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Errol."
He turned towards her. She had opened her eyes to address him, but the lids drooped heavily.
"The kindness is on your side, Lady Carfax," he said deliberately. "If you manage to inspire it in others, the virtue is still your own."
She smiled and closed her eyes again. It was evident that she did not desire to talk.
He looked away from her, glanced at his torn gloves, and tossed them impatiently from him.
For ten minutes neither spoke. The car ran smoothly on through the night like an inspired chariot of the gods. There was no sound of wheels. They seemed to be borne on wings.
For ten minutes the man sat staring stonily before him, rigid as a statue, while the woman lay passive by his side.
But at the end of that ten minutes the speed began to slacken. They came softly to earth and stopped.
Errol opened the door and alighted. "Have you a key?" he said, as he gave her his hand.
She stood above him, looking downwards half-dreamily as one emerging from a deep slumber.
"Do you know," she said, beginning to smile, "I thought that you were the Knave of Diamonds?"
"You've been asleep," he said rather curtly.
She gave a slight shudder as the night air brought her back, and in a moment, like the soft dropping of a veil, her reserve descended upon her.
"I am afraid I have," she said, "Please excuse me. Are we already at the Manor? Yes, I have the key."
She took his hand and stepped down beside him.
"Good night, Mr. Errol," she said. "And thank you."
He did not offer to accompany her to the door. A light was burning within, and he merely stood till he heard the key turn in the lock, then stepped back into the motor and slammed it shut without response of any sort to her last words.
Anne Carfax was left wondering if her dream had been a cause of offense.
CHAPTER IV
CAKE MORNING
"Oh, bother! It's cake morning." Dot Waring turned from the Rectory breakfast-table with a flourish of impatience. "And I do so want to hear all about it," she said. "You might have come down earlier, Ralph."
"My good sister," said the rector's son, helping himself largely to bread and honey, "consider yourself lucky that I have come down at all after dancing half the night with Mrs. Damer, who is no light weight."
"You didn't, Ralph! I am quite sure you didn't! I'm not going to believe anything so absurd." Nevertheless she paused on her way to the door for further details.
"All right. I didn't," said Ralph complacently. "And Sir Giles didn't get drunk as a lord and tumble about the ballroom, and yell comic--awfully comic--songs, till someone hauled him off to the refreshment-room and filled him up with whiskey till he could sing no more!"
"Oh, Ralph! Not really! How utterly beastly! Was Lady Carfax there?"
"She was at first, but she cleared out. I don't know where she went to."
"Oh, poor Lady Carfax! How horrid for her! Ralph, I--I could kick that man!"
"So could I," said Ralph heartily, "if someone would kindly hold him for me. He is a drunken blackguard, and if he doesn't end in an asylum, I shall never express a