The Tidal Wave - Ethel May Dell (top books to read TXT) 📗

I'm going to have her for all that! It isn't good for man to live alone, and I have taken a fancy to Evelyn Emberdale."
"You don't believe me?" Carey asked.
Somehow, though he had been prepared for bluster and even violence, he had not expected incredulity.
Coningsby filled and emptied his glass a second time before he answered.
"No," he said then, with sudden savagery: "I don't believe you! You had better get out of my house at once, or--I warn you--I may break every bone in your blackguardly body yet!" He turned on Carey, leaping madness in his eyes.
But Carey stood like a rock. "You know the truth," he said quietly.
Coningsby broke into another wild laugh, and pointed up at the picture above his head.
"I shall know it," he declared, "when the sea gives up its dead. Till that day I am free to console myself in my own way, and no one shall stop me."
"You are not free," Carey said. Very steadily he faced the man, very distinctly he spoke. "And, however you console yourself, it will not be with my cousin Lady Emberdale."
Coningsby turned back to the table to fill his glass again. He spilt the spirit over the cloth as he did it.
"Man alive," he gibed, "do you think she will believe you if I don't?"
It was the weak point of his position, and Carey realised it. It was more than probable that Lady Emberdale would take Coningsby's view of the matter. If the man really attracted her it was almost a foregone conclusion. He knew Gwen's mother well--her inconsequent whims, her obstinacy.
Yet, even in face of this check, he stood his ground.
"I may find some means of proving what I have told you," he said, with unswerving resolution.
Coningsby drained his glass for the third time, and, with a menacing sweep of the hand, seized his riding-whip.
"I don't advise you to come here with your proofs," he snarled. "The only proof I would look at is the woman herself. Now, sir, I have warned you fairly. Are you going?"
His attitude was openly threatening, but Carey's eyes were piercingly upon him, and, in spite of himself, he paused. So for the passage of seconds they stood; then slowly Carey turned away.
"I am going," he said, "to find your wife."
He did not glance again at the picture as he passed from the room. He could not bring himself to meet the dark eyes that followed him.


V

Yes; he would find her. But how? There was only one course open to him, and he shrank from that with disgust unutterable. It was useless to think of advertising. He was convinced that she would never answer an advertisement.
The only way to find her was to employ a detective to track her down. He clenched his hands in impotent revolt. Not only had it been laid upon him to betray her confidence, but he must follow this up by dragging her from her hiding-place, and returning her to the bitter bondage from which he had once helped her to escape.
That she still lived he was inwardly convinced. He would have given all he had to have known her dead.
But, for that day, at least, there was no more to be done, and Gwen must not have her birthday spoilt by the knowledge of his failure. He decided to keep out of her way till the evening.
When he entered the ball-room at the appointed time she pounced upon him eagerly, but her young guests were nearly all assembled, and it was no moment for private conversation.
"Oh, Reggie! There you are! How dreadful you look in a mask! This is my cousin, _mademoiselle_," turning to a lady in black who accompanied her. "I've been wanting to introduce him to you. Don't forget that the masks are not to come off till midnight. We're going to boom the big gong when the clock strikes twelve."
She flitted away in her shimmering fairy's dress, closely attended by Charlie Rivers, to persuade his father to give her a dance. The room was crowded with masked guests, Lady Emberdale, handsome and brilliant, and Admiral Rivers, her bluff but faithful admirer, being the only exceptions to the rule of the evening.
Carey found himself standing apart with Gwen's particular _protegee_, and he realised at once that he could expect no help from Charlie in this quarter. For, though slim and graceful, _Mademoiselle_ Treves's general appearance was undeniably sombre and elderly. The hair that she wore coiled regally upon her head was silver-grey, and there was a certain weariness about the mouth that, though it did not rob it of its sweetness, deprived it of all suggestion of youth.
"I don't know if I am justified in asking for a dance," Carey said. "My own dancing days are over."
She smiled at him, and instantly the weariness vanished. There was magic in her smile.
"I am no dancer either, except with the little ones. If you care to sit out with me, I shall be very pleased."
Her voice was low and musical. It caught his fancy so that he was aware of a sudden curiosity to see the face that the black mask concealed.
"Give me the twelve-o'clock dance," he said, "if you can spare it!"
She consulted the programme that hung from her wrist. He bent over it as she held it, and scrawled his initials against the dance in question.
"Perhaps I shall not stay for that one," she said, with slight hesitation.
He glanced up at her.
"I thought you were here for the night."
She bent her head.
"But I may slip away before twelve for all that."
Carey smiled.
"I don't think you will, not anyhow if I have a voice in the matter. I am Gwen's lieutenant, you know, specially enrolled to prevent any deserting. There is a heavy penalty for desertion."
"What is it?"
Carey bent again over the programme.
"Deserters will be brought back ignominiously and made to dance with everyone in the room in turn."
He glanced up again at the sound of her low laugh. There was something elusively suggestive about her personality.
"May I have another?" he said. "I hope you don't mind holding the card for me."
"You have hurt your hand?" she asked.
It was thrust away, as usual, in his pocket.
"Some years ago," he told her. "I don't use it more than I can help."
"How disagreeable for you!" she murmured.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I am used to it. It is worse for others than it is for me. May I have No. 9? It includes the supper interval. Thanks! And any more you can spare. I'm only lounging about and seeing that the kids enjoy themselves. I shall be delighted to sit out with you when you are tired of dancing."
"You are very kind," she said.
He made her an abrupt bow.
"Then I hope you won't snub my efforts by deserting?"
She laughed again.
"No, lieutenant, I will not desert. I am going to help you."
She spoke with a winning and impulsive graciousness that stirred again within him that curious sense of groping in the dark among objects familiar but unrecognisable. Surely he had met this stranger somewhere before--in a crowded thoroughfare, in a train, possibly in a theatre, or even in a church!
She looked at him questioningly as he lingered, and with another bow he turned and left her. Doubtless, when he saw her face he would remember, or realise that he had been mistaken.


VI

Mademoiselle Treves kept her word, and wherever the fun was at its height she was invariably the centre of it. The shy children crowded about her. She seemed to possess a special charm for them.
Gwen was delighted, and was obviously enjoying herself to the utmost. In the absence of her _bete noire_ whom she had courageously omitted to invite, she rejoiced to see that her mother was being unusually gracious to her beloved Admiral, who was as merry as a schoolboy in consequence.
She was shrewdly aware, however, that the welcome change was but temporary. Incomprehensible though it was to Gwen, she knew that Major Coningsby's power over her gay and frivolous young mother was absolute. He ruled her with a rod of iron, and Lady Emberdale actually enjoyed his tyranny. The rough court he paid her served to turn her head completely, and she never attempted to resist his influence.
It was all very distasteful to Gwen, who hated the man with the whole force of her nature. She was thankful to feel that Carey was enlisted on her side. She looked upon him as a tower of strength, and, forebodings notwithstanding, she was able to throw herself heart and soul into the evening's festivities, and to beam delightedly upon her cousin as she walked behind him with Charlie to the supper room.
Carey was escorting the French governess. He found a comfortable corner for her in the thronged room at a table laid for two.
"I am bearing in mind your promise to stand by till twelve o'clock," he said. "It's the only thing that keeps me going, for I have a powerful longing to remove my mask in defiance of orders. It feels like a porous plaster. I shall only hold out till midnight with your gallant assistance."
He stooped with the words to pick up her fan which she had dropped. He was obliged to use his left hand, and he knew that she gave a quick start at sight of it. But she spoke instantly and he admired her ready self-control.
"It was rather a rash promise, I am afraid."
Her voice sounded half shy and wholly sweet, and again he was caught by that elusive quality about her that had puzzled him before. It was stronger than ever, so strong that he felt for a moment on the verge of discovery. But yet again it baffled him, making him all the more determined to pursue it to its source.
"You're not going to cry off?" he said, with a smile.
He saw her flush behind her mask.
"Only with your permission," she answered.
He heard the note of pleading in her voice, but he would not notice it.
"Oh, I can't let you off!" he said lightly. "Gwen would never forgive me. Besides, I don't want to."
She said no more, probably realising that he meant to have his way. They talked upon indifferent topics in the midst of the general buzz of merriment till, supper over, they separated.
"I shall come for that midnight dance," were Carey's last words, as he bowed and left her.
And during the hour that intervened he kept a sharp eye upon her, lest her evident reluctance to remain should prove too much for her integrity. He was half amused at his own tenacity in the matter. Not for years had a chance acquaintance so excited his curiosity.
A few minutes before midnight he was standing before her. The last dance of the evening had just begun. Gwen had decreed that everyone should stop upon the stroke of twelve, while every mask was removed, after which the dance was to be continued to the finish.
"Shall we go upstairs?" suggested Carey.
To his surprise he felt that the hand she laid upon his arm was trembling.
"By all means," she answered. "Let us get away from the crowd!"
It was an unexpected request, but he showed no surprise. He piloted her to a secluded spot in the upper regions, and they sat down on a lounge at the end of a corridor.
A queer sense of uneasiness had begun to oppress Carey, as strong as it was inexplicable. He made a resolute effort to ignore it. The music downstairs was