The Powers and Maxine | Page 2

dancing with Lord Robert West, the Duke of Glasgow's brother.
"Thank you so much for the book," I said.
(He had sent me a book that morning--one he'd heard me say I wanted.)
He didn't seem to hear, and then he turned suddenly, with one of his nice smiles. I always think he has the nicest smile in the world: and certainly he has the nicest voice. His eyes looked very kind, and a little sad. I willed him hard to love me.
"It made me happy to get it," I went on.
"It made me happy to send it," he said.
"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked.
"Why, of course."
"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?"
"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his eyes.
"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at Algiers."
"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly."
"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family, doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money, and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di can put on when she wants to get something out of people. I'd make the Foreign Secretary give you exactly what you wanted, even if it took you far, far from me."
With that, he looked at me suddenly, and his face grew slowly red, under the brown.
"You are a very kind Imp," he said. "Imp" is the name he invented for me. I loved to hear him call me by it.
"Kind!" I echoed. "One isn't kind when one--likes--people."
I saw by his eyes, then, that he knew. But I didn't care. If only I could make him say the words I longed to hear--even because he pitied me, because he had found out how I loved him, and because he had really too much of the dark-young-Crusader-knight in him, to break my heart! I made up my mind that I would take him at his word, quickly, if he gave me the chance; and I would tell Di that he was dreadfully in love with me. That would make her writhe.
I kept my eyes on him, and I let them tell him everything. He saw; there was no doubt of that; but he did not say the words I hoped for. A moment or two he was silent; and then, gazing away towards the door of the ballroom, he spoke very gently, as if I had been a child--though I am older than Di by three or four years.
"Thank you, Imp, for letting me see that you are such a staunch little friend," said he. "Now that I know you really do take an interest in my affairs, I think I may tell you why I want so much to go to Algiers--though very likely you've guessed already--you are such an 'intuitive' girl. And besides, I haven't tried very hard to hide my feelings--not as hard as I ought, perhaps, when I realise how little I have to offer to your sister. Now you understand all, don't you--even if you didn't before? I love her, and if I go to Algiers--"
"Don't say any more," I managed to cut him short. "I can't bear--I mean, I understand. I--did guess before."
It was true. I had guessed, but I wouldn't let myself believe. I hoped against hope. He was so much kinder to me than any other man ever took the trouble to be, in all my wretched, embittered twenty-four years of life.
"Di might have told me," I went gasping on, rather than let there be a long silence between us just then. I had enough pride not to want him to see me cry--though, if it could have made any difference, I would have grovelled at his feet and wet them with my tears. "But she never does tell me anything about herself."
"She's so unselfish and so fond of you, that probably she likes better to talk about you instead," he defended her. And then I