THE HEART OF A WOMAN (Unabridged). Emma Orczy
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did not reply, but continued to walk beside her, just a yard or so apart from her, turning his steps in the direction of the gates, toward the Albert Bridge, their nearest way home. She — meekly now, for already she was sorry — turned to look at him. Something in his attitude, the stoop of the shoulders, usually so square and erect, the hands curiously clasped behind his back, told her that her shaft — very thoughtlessly aimed — had struck even deeper than it should.
"I am so sorry, dear," she said gently.
His look forgave her, even before the words were fully out of her mouth, but with characteristic reticence, he made no reply to her taunt. Strangely enough she was satisfied that he should say nothing. The look, which did not reproach even whilst it tried to conceal the infinite depth of the wound so lightly dealt, had told her more than any words could do. Whatever Luke decided to do, it would be from a sense of moral obligation, that desire for doing the right thing — in the worldly sense of the term — which is inherent in Englishmen of a certain class. No sentiment save that of a conventional one of honour would be allowed to sway her destiny and his.
Conventionality — that same strained sense of honour and duty — decreed that under certain mundane circumstances a man and woman should not mate. Differences of ancestry, of parentage, of birth and of country, divergence of taste, of faith, of belief — all these matter not one jot. But let the man be beggared and the woman rich, and convention steps in and says, "It shall not be!"
These two bowed to that decree: unconventional, in so far that they both made the sacrifice out of the intense purity of their sentiment to one another. They made an absolutely worldly sacrifice for a wholly unworldly motive. Luke would as soon have thought of seeing Louisa in a badly fitting serge frock, and paying twopence for a two-mile ride in an omnibus, as he would expect to see a diamond tiara packed in a card-board box, it would be unfair on the jeweller who had made the tiara thus to subject it to rough treatment; and it would be equally unfair on the Creator of Louisa to let her be buffeted about by the cruder atoms of this world.
Louisa only thought of Luke and that perhaps he would feel happier in his mind if she allowed him to make this temporary sacrifice.
There is such wonderful balm in self-imposed sacrifice.
"What," she asked simply, "do you want me to say, Luke?"
"Only that — that you won't give me up altogether unless —— "
Here he checked himself abruptly. Was there ever an Englishman born who could talk sentiment at moments such as this? Luke was no exception to that rule. There was so much that he wanted to say to Louisa, and yet the very words literally choked him before he could contrive to utter them.
"Don't," she said quietly, "let us even refer to such things, Luke. I do not believe in this shadow, and I cannot even understand why you should worry about it. But whatever happens, I should never give you up. Never. We will put off fixing the day of our wedding; since we have made no announcement this won't matter at all: but I only agree to this because I think that it is what you would like. I fancy that it would ease your mind. As for breaking our engagement in the future — in case the worst happens — well it shall not be with my consent, Luke, unless you really cease to care."
They had reached the gate close to the bridge. Life pulsated all round them, the life of the big city, callous, noisy, and cruel. Omnibuses, cabs, heavy vans, rattled incessantly past them. People jostled one another, hurrying and scurrying, pigmies and ants adding their tiny load of work, of care, of sorrow to the titanic edifice of this living world.
Louisa's last words remained unanswered. Luke had, by his silence, said everything there was to say. They stood on the pavement for a moment, and Luke hailed a passing taxicab.
At the corner opposite, an omnibus pulled up on its way westward. A man stepped off the curb ready to enter it. Louisa caught his eye, and he raised his hat — the man who had passed them in the park just now.
CHAPTER VI
JUST A DISAGREEABLE OLD MAN
The luncheons at Grosvenor Square were always rather dull and formal, but Louisa did not mind that very much. She was used to dull and formal affairs: they were part and parcel of her daily life. London society is full of it. The dull and formal dominate; the others — vulgar if more lively — were not worth cultivating.
Then, she almost liked Lord Radclyffe, because he was so fond of Luke. And even then "almost" was a big word. No one — except Luke — could really like the old man. He was very bad tempered, very dictatorial, a perfect tyrant in his own household. His opinions no one dared contradict, no one cared to argue with him, and his advanced Tory views were so rabid that he almost made perverts from the cause, of all those whom he desired to convince.
And even these were few, for Lord Radclyffe had no friends and very few acquaintances. He had a strange and absolute dislike for his fellow men. He did not like seeing people, he hated to exchange greetings, to talk or to mingle with any crowd that was purely on pleasure bent. He went up to the House and made speeches — political, philanthropic, economic speeches — which Luke prepared for him, and which he spoke without enthusiasm or any desire to please. This he did, not because he liked it or took any interest in things political, philanthropic or economic, but only because he considered that a man in his position owed certain duties to the State — duties which it would be cowardly to shirk.
But he really cared nothing for the thoughts of others, for their opinions, their joys, or their sorrows. He had schooled himself not to care, to call philanthropy empty sentiment, politics senseless ambition, economics grasping avarice.
His was a life entirely wrapped up in itself. In youth he had been very shy: a shyness caused at first by a serious defect of speech which, though cured in later years, always left an unconquerable diffidence, an almost morbid fear of ridicule in its train.
Because of this, I think, he had never been a sportsman — or, rather, had never been an athlete, for he was splendid with a gun and the finest revolver shot in England, so I've been told, and an acknowledged master of fence, but with bat, ball, or racquet he was invariably clumsy.
He had always hated to be laughed at, and therefore had never gone through the rough mill of a tyro in athletics or in games. Arthur, one of his brothers, had been a blue at Oxford; the other one, James — you remember James de Mountford? was the celebrated cricketer; but he, the eldest, always seemed to remain outside that magic circle of sport, the great ring of many links which unites Englishmen one to another in a way that no other conformity of tastes, of breeding, or of religion can ever do.
Because of this diffidence too, no doubt, he had never married. I was told once by an intimate friend of his, that old Rad — as he was universally called — had never mustered up sufficient courage to propose to any woman. And as he saw one by one the coveted matrimonial prizes — the pretty girls whom at different times he had admired sufficiently to desire for wife — snapped up by more enterprising wooers, his dour moroseness grew into positive chronic ill-humour.
He liked no one and no one liked him: and during sixty years of life he had succeeded in eliminating from his entire being every feeling of sentiment save one. He had to all appearances an absolutely callous heart: he cared neither for dog nor horse — he ordered a splendid mare to be shot without the slightest compunction after she had carried him in the hunting field and in the park faithfully and beautifully for over eight years, just because she had shied at a motor-car and nearly thrown him. He was not cruel, you know, just callous in all respects save one: void of all sentiment — he called it sentimentality — save in his affection for Luke.
Luke had been — ever since he was a growing lad — the buffer in the establishment between the irascible master and the many subordinates. From Mr. Warren — the highly paid and greatly snubbed secretary — down to the maids below stairs, one and all brought troubles, complaints, worries to Mr. Luke. No one dared approach his lordship. A word out of season brought instant