JOHN HAMMOND, although a bachelor, lived in a very good house, in the same neighborhood as Lord Severn’s, and, strange as it may appear to the author of The Christian, he possessed more than one teaspoon. When he had hospital nurses of doubtful character to tea, which was extremely seldom, he did not even wait on them himself; he kept servants for that very purpose. Possibly those extraordinary facts may be accounted for by his not being a wicked lord, nor even a misguided baronet.
John Hammond was seated at home on the morning after the concert, considering his position. Immediately after the scene in the picture-gallery overnight he had come away, feeling as if his world had crumbled into ruin around him. He had saved the woman he loved from the marchioness’s scorn; he could not save her from his own. And the other woman, whom he had considered his friend, to whom he had offered himself in all good-will, believing that she had affection to give him, if not love—he had discovered that her heart was engaged, and that she regarded marriage with him as a hateful necessity.
He had sent her a note, brief, courteous, and dignified. In it he had not used one word that might seem to accuse her; he had taken the entire blame upon himself. He had stated simply that he found he could not offer her the love of a husband, and he had placed himself in her hands. Now he was waiting for her answer.
But though he was waiting to hear from Lady Victoria, he was thinking of Belle Yorke. There are two kinds of misfortune which sometimes come upon a man at the same time; and one makes a public arrival, and it harasses him a great deal, but the other comes in silence and in secrecy, and it wrecks his life.
There was a knock at the door, and a footman announced Captain Mauleverer.
For the first time in the history of their friendship the two men faced each other with mutual embarrassment. The captain, like a sensible man, went straight at his fence.
“Look here, Hammond, I am awfully sorry I made such an ass of myself last night. I’m afraid I have given you a wrong impression about Victoria.”
“No. Why should you say that?” Hammond replied in a tone of indifference.
Mauleverer looked at him anxiously.
“I’m afraid I have led you to think there was something between us, that she—well, in fact, that she cared about me.”
Hammond gave a weary shrug.
“What of it? What does it matter?”
“It’s very decent of you to take it so well,” said the puzzled captain. “I was afraid that I might have unwittingly injured her in your mind.”
“No, oh no; don’t think that. There was no hypocrisy about Lady Victoria, I can assure you. She didn’t pretend to be in love with me, and I didn’t pretend to be in love with her.”
“You asked her to marry you,” observed the other, in a tone of remonstrance.
“I know; I did it to please my constituents, as she was aware. A public man has to do that sort of thing.”
“Surely you expected her to care for you in time?”
“No; I merely expected her to canvass for me.”
Mauleverer began to feel baffled by this cynical indifference.
“You seem to take a very curious tone,” he said, after a moment. “Of course, you understand that, whatever feeling I may have had for her in the past, I shall never think of her again except as a cousin.”
In spite of his own inward trouble, Hammond could not resist a smile at the honest captain’s efforts to plead against himself. He gave him an amused glance as he retorted:
“I am afraid that is rather ambiguous. I have known cousins who were very much attached to each other.”
“Hammond, do you doubt me when I tell you that from this moment Victoria will be perfectly indifferent to me?”
“Well, you piled it on pretty strongly last night, you know. I can’t help thinking that you are rather more fond of her than you pretend. But there is no need to get excited about it; it makes no difference to me.”
Mauleverer gazed at him in dismay.
“Is that the way in which you speak about your future wife?”
“No,” said Hammond, shaking his head decidedly.
“Hammond, what does this mean? You say that my attachment to Victoria makes no difference to you, and yet you no longer wish to marry her?”
“It means that I have made a mistake, and that I have to get out of it the best way I can.”
“Old man, this is my doing. This is because of what I said to you last night.”
“No.” Hammond became earnest for the first time. “I am very glad you said what you did, because if I had had the vanity to think that Lady Victoria cared twopence about me, you would have undeceived me. But the reason why I have determined not to marry her is not merely because I believe she loves you, but because I have discovered that I love another woman too well ever to marry any one besides.”
“Great heavens! Is that it?” Mauleverer exclaimed. He recalled the scene of last night, and began dimly to understand it.
Hammond proceeded to enlighten him.
“Did you think that I was jealous of you? Why, man, if I had loved your cousin with one-hundredth part of the love I have for that other, I should have taken you by the throat last night when you said what you did. Jealous of you? No, but of that man whose years protect him from my anger, though they have not protected youth and innocence from him. It is Lord Severn, not you, who has robbed me of the woman I love; and let me tell you that if I had no other reason for breaking the hollow, lying pledge I gave last night, I would sooner cut off this hand than give it to the daughter of the man who is guilty of Belle Yorke’s betrayal!”
“My God!”
Mauleverer sat transfixed as the whole truth of the situation burst upon him. Twice he opened his lips to speak, and twice he recollected that the secret had been intrusted to his honor. He was on the point of springing to his feet to go, when the door opened and the footman came in.
“A Mr. Yorke, sir, wishes to see you. He is in the hall,” announced the stately creature with icy impassibility.
“Mr. Yorke?” repeated Hammond, bewildered.
“He is a rather young man, sir.” The information was vouchsafed with a crushing absence of emotion. “I should judge him to be about thirteen.”
Hammond started and changed color. Then he said with quiet emphasis:
“Show the young gentleman in.”
If ever footman permitted himself to show human feelings, assuredly a faint gleam of something resembling surprise played across the visage of that footman as he withdrew.
“Who is it?” asked Mauleverer, amused.
“Belle Yorke’s brother.”
The footman threw open the door. With perfect self-control, with a beautiful unconsciousness of whether he was announcing a member of the royal family or a detective with a warrant for his master’s arrest, he uttered the words:
The captain saw a rather undersized boy in knickerbockers, with his fists tightly clenched and a flush of excitement on his cheeks, who walked boldly into the centre of the room, and there stood still.
Hammond, who had already risen, went towards the boy with extended hand. Mr. Yorke drew back, and kept his own hands down by his side.
“I’d rather not shake hands with you, please, Mr. Hammond.”
The man started, and dropped his hand with a strange look.
“Will you sit down?” he asked, quietly.
“I’d rather not, please.”
Hammond bowed, and remained standing himself.
“I’ve come to see you about my sister. Miss Belle Yorke. She hasn’t any father, you know, so I’m her protector.”
“Yes, my boy, I’m sure you are,” said Hammond, very gently.
Mr. Yorke went on, with a certain feverish energy:
“It’s rather difficult for me to speak to you, because I don’t know exactly what you’ve done to Belle; but I know it’s your doing, whatever it is, because you used to be her sweetheart, and now she says she shall never see you any more. You’ve broken her heart, and she wouldn’t eat any breakfast this morning, and mother says she will give up the stage; and I believe she’s been crying, though she won’t own to it. And I don’t think you’re a gentleman, Mr. Hammond.”
Hammond’s head was drooping on his breast.
“God knows that!” he muttered.
“So I have come here to tell you that I consider you’ve no right to treat Belle like that, and I’m not going to stand it. And as soon as I’m old enough, I’m going to challenge you to a duel.”
“My child!”
The exclamation burst from the man unawares. Mr. Yorke turned very red.
“I think it’s very offensive of you to call me that,” he said, wrathfully, “and it isn’t treating me as you ought to.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the man, humbly.
“And if you think,” Mr. Yorke went on fiercely, “that you can take advantage of my being young to refuse me satisfaction, I shall think you’re not very honorable, because you knew Belle had only me to protect her when you broke her heart. And I’ve come here to ask you, as a gentleman, to wait till I am twenty-one, so that I can fight you. It’s only eight years and two months, and I expect you to give me your word of honor that you will wait till then.”
“I will wait.”
“Thank you, sir.” Mr. Yorke became more friendly. “It’s only fair for me to tell you that I’m going to save up and buy a revolver and practise every day, so you had better do the same. I don’t want to take any advantage of you.”
“You’re a brave fellow,” said Hammond.
“Then I think that’s all. Good-morning, Mr. Hammond.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Yorke.”
Hammond rang the bell, and advanced to open the door of the room. Mr. Yorke was half-way out when he paused in the doorway.
“I say, Mr. Hammond,” he said, his manner suddenly changing to thorough boyishness, “do you mind promising me, as a great favor, that you won’t tell mother or Belle about this, or they mightn’t let me buy the revolver?”
Hammond bowed kindly.
“I promise.”
The footman appeared outside.
“Show Mr. Yorke out.”
Mr. Yorke, regaining his dignity, made his exit in state, leaving the two men looking at each other.
“By Jove! that was a little trump!” Mauleverer burst out as the door closed. “Not much the matter with the modern child, after all.”
Hammond nodded as he cast himself wearily into a chair.
“Do you mind going now, old man?” he said, bluntly.
Mauleverer sprang up with a sudden recollection, hurried out on to the pavement, hailed the nearest cab, and dashed off to Berkeley Square.