CHAPTER XXVIII

When they had done everything that could be done for him at that time, Sprats and Saxonstowe left Lucian in Paris and returned together to London. He appeared to have no particular desire that they should remain with him, nor any dread of being alone. Sprats had seen to the furnishing of his rooms and to the transportation of his most cherished books and pictures; he was left surrounded with comfort and luxury, and he assured his friends that he wanted for nothing. He intended to devote himself to intense study, and if he wanted a little society, well, he already had a considerable acquaintance amongst authors and artists in Paris, and could make use of it if need were. But he spoke of himself as of an anchorite; it was plain to see that he believed that the joie de vivre existed for him no longer. It was also plain that something in him wished to be clear of the old life and the old associations. He took an affectionate farewell of Sprats and of Saxonstowe at the Gare du Nord, whither he accompanied them on their departure, but Sprats was keenly aware of the fact that there was that in him which was longing to see the last of them. They were links of a chain that bound him to a life with which he wished to have no further connection. When they said good-bye, Sprats knew that she was turning down a page that closed a long chapter of her own life.

She faced the problem bravely and with clear-headedness. She saw now that much of what she had taken to be real fact had been but a dream. Lucian had awakened the mother-instinct in her by his very helplessness, but nothing in him had ever roused the new feeling which had grown in her every day since Saxonstowe had told her of his love. She had made the mistake of taking interest and affection for love, and now that she had found it out she was contented and uneasy, happy and{229} miserable, pleased and furious, all at once. She wanted to run away from Saxonstowe to the very ends of the earth, but she also cherished a secret desire to sit at his feet and be his slave, and would rather have torn her tongue out than tell him of it.

While they were father-and-mother-ing Lucian in Paris, Saxonstowe had remained solid and grim as one of the Old Guard, doing nothing but his duty. Sprats had watched him with keen observation, and had admired his stern determination and the earnest way in which he did everything. He had taken hold of Lucian as a big brother might take a little one, and had been gentle and firm, kindly and tactful, all at once. She had often longed to throw her arms round him and kiss him for his good-boy qualities, but he had sunk the lover in the friend with unmistakable purpose, and she was afraid of him. She began to catch herself looking at him out of her eye-corners when he was not looking at her, and she hated herself. Once when he came suddenly into a room, she blushed so furiously that she could have cried with vexation, and it was all the more aggravating, she said, because she had just happened to be thinking of him. Travelling back together, she was very subdued and essentially feminine. Her manner invited confidence, but Saxonstowe was stiff as a ramrod and cold as an icicle. He put her into a hansom at Charing Cross, and bade her good-bye as if she had been a mere acquaintance.

But he came to her the next afternoon, and she knew from his face that he was in an urgent and a masterful mood. She recognised that she would have to capitulate, and had a happy moment in assuring herself that she would make her own terms. Saxonstowe wasted no time. He might have been a smart young man calling to collect the water-rate.

‘The night that we went to Paris together,’ he said, ‘you made an observation which you thought I understood. I didn’t understand it, and now I want to know what you meant.’{230}

‘What I said. That we were going—you and I—together,’ she answered.

‘But what did that mean?’

‘Together,’ she said, ‘together means—well, of course, it means—together.’

Saxonstowe put his hands on her shoulders; she immediately began to study the pattern of the hearthrug at their feet.

‘Will you marry me, Millicent?’ he said.

She nodded her head, but her eyes still remained fixed on his toes.

‘Answer me,’ he commanded.

‘Yes,’ she said, and lifted her eyes to his.

A moment later she disengaged herself from his arms and began to laugh.

‘I was going to extract such a lot of conditions,’ she said. ‘Somehow I don’t care about them now. But will you tell me just what is going to happen?’

‘You knew, I suppose, that I should have already mapped everything out. Well, so I have. We shall be married at once, in the quietest possible fashion, and then we are going round the world in our own way. It is to be your holiday after all these years of work.’

She nodded, with perfect acquiescence in his plans.

‘At once?’ she said questioningly.

‘A week from to-day,’ he said.

The notion of such precipitancy brought the blood into her face.

‘I suppose I ought to say that I can’t possibly be ready in a week,’ she said, ‘but it so happens that I can. A week to-day, then.’

Mr. Chilverstone came up from Simonstower to marry them. It was a very quiet wedding in a quiet church. Lady Firmanence, however, was there, and before the bride and bridegroom left to catch a transatlantic liner for New York she expressed a decided opinion that the fourth Viscount Saxonstowe had inherited more than his share of the good sense and wise perception for which their family had always been justly famous.