The Knave of Diamonds - Ethel May Dell (best novels for students txt) 📗

how long it would be before he looked up, if perhaps he would go without looking at her, or if--ah, he was speaking again! His words reached her as from an immense distance. At the same instant his hands came to her out of a surging darkness that hid all things, grasping, sustaining, compelling. She yielded to them, scarcely knowing what she did.
"Lady Carfax has been overtiring herself," she heard him say. "Have you any brandy at hand?"
"Oh, dear Lady Carfax!" cried Dot in distress. "Make her sit down, Nap. Here is a cushion. Yes, I'll go and get some."
Guided by those steady hands, Anne sank into a chair, and there the constriction that bound her began to pass. She shivered from head to foot.
Nap stooped over her and chafed her icy hands. He did not look at her or speak. When Dot came back, he took the glass from her and held it very quietly to the quivering lips.
She drank, responsive to his unspoken insistence, and as she did so, for a single instant she met his eyes. They were darkly inscrutable and gave her no message of any sort. She might have been accepting help from a total stranger.
"No more, please!" she whispered, and he took the glass away.
The front door was still open. He drew it wider, and the evening air blew in across her face. Somewhere away in the darkness a thrush was warbling softly. Nap stood against the door and waited. Dot knelt beside her, holding her hand very tightly.
"I am better," Anne said at last. "Forgive me, dear child. I suppose it has been--too much for me."
"My dear, dear Anne!" said Dot impulsively. "Would you like to come into the drawing-room? There is tea there. But of course we will have it here if you prefer it."
"No," Anne said. "No. We will go to the drawing-room."
She prepared to rise, and instantly Nap stepped forward. But he did not offer to touch her. He only stood ready.
When he saw that she had so far recovered herself as to be able to move with Dot's assistance, he dropped back.
"I am going, Dot," he said. "You will do better without me. I will look in again later."
And before Dot could agree or protest he had stepped out into the deepening twilight and was gone.


CHAPTER VIII
THE HEART OF A SAVAGE

It had certainly been a successful afternoon. Mrs. Errol smiled to herself as she drove back to Baronmead. Everything had gone well. Dear Anne had looked lovely, and she for one was thankful that she had discarded her widow's weeds. Had not her husband been virtually dead to her for nearly a year? Besides--here Mrs. Errol's thoughts merged into a smile again--dear Anne was young, not much more than a girl in years. Doubtless she would marry again ere long.
At this point Mrs. Errol floated happily away upon a voyage of day-dreams that lasted till the car stopped. So engrossed was she that she did not move for a moment even then. Not until the door was opened from outside did she bestir herself. Then, still smiling, she prepared to descend.
But the next instant she checked herself with a violent start that nearly threw her backwards. The man at the step who stood waiting to assist her was no servant.
"My!" she gasped. "Is it you, Nap, or your ghost?"
"It's me," said Nap.
Very coolly he reached out a hand and helped her to descend. "We have arrived at the same moment," he said. "I've just walked across the park. How are you, alma mater?"
She did not answer him or make response of any sort to his greeting. She walked up the steps and into the house with leaden feet. The smile had died utterly from her face. She looked suddenly old.
He followed her with the utmost composure, and when she stopped proceeded to divest her of her furs with the deftness of movement habitual to him.
Abruptly she spoke, in her voice a ring of something that was almost ferocity. "What have you come back for anyway?"
He raised his eyebrows slightly without replying.
But Mrs. Errol was not to be so silenced. Her hands fastened with determination upon the front of his coat. "You face me, Napoleon Errol," she said. "And answer me honestly. What have you come back for? Weren't there enough women on the other side to keep you amused?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Women in plenty--amusement none. Moreover, I didn't go to be amused. Where is Lucas?"
"Don't you go to Lucas till I've done with you," said Mrs. Errol. "You come right along to my room first."
"What for?" He stood motionless, suffering her restraining hands, the beginning of a smile about his lips.
"There's something I've got to tell you," she said.
"Lead the way then, alma mater!" he said. "I am very much at your service."
Mrs. Errol turned without further words, and he, with her sables flung across his shoulder, prepared to follow. She moved up the stairs as if she were very weary. The man behind her walked with the elasticity of a cat.
But there was no lack of resolution about her when in her own room she turned and faced him. There was rather something suggestive of a mother animal at bay.
"Nap," she said, and her deep voice quivered, "if there's any right feeling in you, if you are capable of a single spark of affection, of gratitude, you'll turn around right now and go back to the place you came from."
Nap deposited his burden on the back of a chair. His dark face was devoid of the faintest shadow of expression. "That so?" he drawled. "I thought you seemed mighty pleased to see me."
"Lock that door!" said Mrs. Errol. "Now come and sit here where you can see my face and know whether I am telling the truth."
He smiled at that. "I don't require ocular evidence, alma mater. I have always been able to read you with my eyes shut."
"I believe you have, Nap," she said, with a touch of wistfulness.
"It isn't your fault," he said, "that you weren't made subtle enough. You've done your best."
He came and sat down facing her as she desired. The strong electric light beat upon his face also, but it revealed nothing to her anxious eyes--nothing save that faint, cynical smile that masked so much.
She shook her head. She was clasping and unclasping her hands restlessly. "A very poor best, Nap," she said. "I know only too well how badly I've failed. It never seemed to matter till lately, and now I would give the eyes out of my head to have a little influence with you."
"That so?" he said again.
She made a desperate gesture. "Yes, you sit there and smile. It doesn't matter to you who suffers so long as you can grab what you want."
"How do you know what I want?" he said.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Errol. "I only surmise."
"And you think that wise? You are not afraid of tripping up in the dark?"
She stretched out her hands to him in sudden earnest entreaty. "Nap, tell me that it isn't Anne Carfax, and I'll bless you with my dying breath!"
But he looked at her without emotion. He took her hands after a moment, but it was the merest act of courtesy. He did not hold them.
"And if it were?" he said slowly, his hard eyes fixed on hers.
She choked back her agitation with the tears running down her face. "Then God help Lucas--and me too--for it will be his death-blow!"
"Lucas?" said Nap.
He did not speak as if vitally interested, yet she answered as if compelled.
"He loves her. He can't do without her. She has been his mainstay all through the winter. He would have died without her."
Nap passed over the information as though it were of no importance. "He is no better then?" he asked.
"Yes, he is better. But he has been real sick. No one knows what he has come through, and there is that other operation still to be faced. I'm scared to think of it. He hasn't the strength of a mouse. It's only the thought of Anne that makes him able to hold on. I can see it in his eyes day after day--the thought of winning out and making her his wife."
Again he passed the matter over. "When does Capper come again?"
"Very soon now. In two or three weeks. There was a letter from him to-day, Lucas was quite excited about it, but I fancy it upset dear Anne some. You see--she loves him too."
There fell a silence. Mrs. Errol wiped her eyes and strove to compose herself. Somehow he had made her aware of the futility of tears. She wondered what was passing in his mind as he sat there sphinx-like, staring straight before him. Had she managed to reach his heart, she wondered? Or was there perchance no heart behind that inscrutable mask to reach? Yet she had always believed that after his own savage fashion he had loved Lucas.
Suddenly he rose. "If you have quite done with me, alma mater, I'll go."
She looked up at him apprehensively. "What are you going to do?"
He smiled abruptly. "I am going to get a drink."
"And what then?" she asked feverishly. "Nap, oh, Nap, she is staying in the house. Won't you go without seeing her?"
"I have seen her already," drawled Nap.
"You have seen her?"
His smile became contemptuous. "What of it? Do you seriously suppose she is the only woman in the world I care to look at?"
"I don't know what to think," cried Mrs. Errol. "I only know that you hold Luke's fate between your hands."
He was already at the door. He turned and briefly bowed. "You flatter me, alma mater!" he said.
And with the smile still upon his lips he left her.


CHAPTER IX
THE DIVINE SPARK

"Boney, old chap, you're the very man I want!" Such was Lucas Errol's greeting to the man who had shot like a thunderbolt into the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded him, to the general disturbance of all others who dwelt therein.
"I guess you must have known it," he said, the sinewy hand fast gripped in his. "You've come like an answer to prayer. Where have you been all this time? And why didn't you write? It's worried me some not hearing."
"Great Lucifer!" said Nap.
He sat down, leaving his hand in his brother's grasp. The cynicism had gone utterly from his face, but he did not answer either question.
"So you are winning out?" he said. "It's been a long trail, I'll wager."
"Oh, damnably long, Boney." Lucas uttered a weary sigh. "I was nearly down and out in the winter. But I'm better, you know. I'm better." He met the open criticism of Nap's eyes with a smile. "What's the verdict?" he asked.
"I'll tell you presently. You're not looking overfed anyway." Nap's fingers began to feel along his wrist. "Did Capper say he wanted a skeleton to work on?"
"Shucks, dear fellow! There's more than enough of me. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing? I want to know."
"I?" Nap jerked back his head. "I've nothing to tell," he declared. "You know what I went to do. Well, I've done it, and that's all there is to it."
"I'm not quite clear as to what you went to do," Lucas answered. "You didn't turn up in Arizona. I was puzzled what to think."
"You never expected me to go to Arizona," said Nap with conviction. "You were shrewd enough for that."
"Thanks, Boney! P'r'aps I