The Fate of Fenella. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ friendship that I knew was only a mask for love."

      "You cannot love me?" he asked again monotonously, like a man repeating some set formula.

      "I cannot love you. I have played with my life in my own way, and as I have played so I will pay. Now, good-by, I know you too well and trust you too well to fear that you will trouble me at all. You will go away, I suppose?"

      "Yes," said Jacynth moodily, "I will go away."

      "Thank you, and good-by." She moved away swiftly, and he stood there staring after her until she disappeared inside the hotel.

      ​Jacynth walked moodily back into the garden and stared sullenly at the bright sky. If the autumn day, so warm that it might have been midsummer, had suddenly changed to winter, it could not have looked colder or more dismal to his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders. "So that's all over," he said to himself bitterly; "you have played your stake and you have lost, and now you must remember that it is your duty to play the man and not the fool." Thrusting his hands into his pockets he began to walk slowly down the garden path, feeling very dull and dizzy, like a man who has had a heavy fall. He was thinking, or trying to think, of things which interested him so deeply once, and which now seemed so strangely uninteresting, when his meditations were interrupted. He found himself confronted by Castleton, who was eying him sympathetically.

      "Old man," said Castleton, "you saved my life once, and though it wasn't much worth saving, I'm devilish grateful to you all the same. So I'd like to do you a good turn now if I can."

      "You can't do me any good," Jacynth answered, "there's nothing the matter with me. Don't talk rot, there's a good fellow."

      "There's a great deal the matter with you, and I can do you good," Castleton answered. "I can tell you all about that woman."

      ​

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

BY FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE.

       Table of Contents

      HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY.

      But this case is so plain … that nothing can obscure it, but to use too many words about it.—Jeremy Taylor.

      Lord Castleton, doubtless, did not literally believe that he could tell his friend "all about" that woman. But he probably was possessed with the conviction that when he should have said what he had to say, there would remain little more worth telling. We smile with a kind of fatigued contempt at the venerable classical joke of the fool who, wishing to sell his house, carried about a brick from it as a specimen. We know better how to judge of houses. But we are willing—sometimes—to pick off a very small fragment of human life, and to exclaim knowingly, "Look here, I'll tell you what it is made of!"

      Lord Castleton's well-meant offer was not received with gratitude.

      "What woman?" growled Jacynth, taking one hand out of his pocket to tilt his hat a little more over his eyes.

      ​"Why, Mrs.—Miss—Lady—by Jove, I scarcely know what to call her!"

      "That's a good beginning," said Jacynth sardonically.

      "No, no, my dear fellow, I really do know all about her; only it's—it's a little puzzling where to begin."

      "Why begin?"

      The fat little gentleman reddened and frowned. Then his good nature, and his sense of obligation to the other man, and his pity for him (which, perhaps, rendered the sense of obligation easier to bear) conquered the momentary irritation.

      "The fact is, Jacynth," he said, "I consider it my duty to tell you the story of Fenella Ffrench. No one knows it better than I do. You may hear it told by a score of men in town, who will be a deuced deal harder on the girl than I am. I have no animosity against her, poor little fool—none in the world. In fact, I rather like her."

      "Very gratifying to the lady; but—excuse me—not of palpitating interest to me. Good-by. I think I shall go for a long spin."

      "Stop a moment, Jacynth! Did you never hear of Lady Francis Onslow?"

      Jacynth turned round sharply and looked at him. "Lady Francis Onslow?" he repeated, putting his hand to his forehead and looking as though he were trying to recall some half-effaced recollections.

      ​"Lady Francis Onslow. She was a daughter of Colonel Fortescue Ffrench, of Crimean celebrity, and she married Frank Onslow when she was only seventeen, and three years afterward they were separated."

      "Is that the woman?"

      "That is the woman."

      "She looks such a child!"

      "I told you she was married when she was only seventeen."

      "But he—Lord Francis—he is alive?"

      "Very much so! At least he looked alive enough when I saw him about half an hour ago."

      "He is here?"

      "Yes. Look here, Jacynth; just let us take a turn somewhere; here, this is a quiet path, and——"

      "No; not there!" said Jacynth, drawing back roughly, as Lord Castleton laid his hand on his arm. It was the pathway where he had just been speaking with Fenella. "I don't know why I should listen to you at all. What does it matter? Nothing you can say will do any good."

      Nevertheless, he did listen. What man would not have listened? That he should believe it when it was told was another matter. Jacynth was a clever man, a man of brilliant talents and rising reputation in his profession. He had also certain special gifts which were not so generally ​recognized. He had a keen and almost intuitive insight into character, and a steady power of incredulity as to a vast proportion of the stories circulated in the "best society" on the "best authority."

      At first sight this may seem no very extraordinary power. And perhaps it is not extraordinary, but it is certainly not common. The gossip of the smoking room, the little tattle of the clubs, penetrate, as a fine drizzling rain penetrates one's clothing, into the consciousness of most men.

      Men may declare that they give no heed to that sort of gossip; but, as a rule, their minds are porous, and do not resist it. With persons who pride themselves on knowing the world, credulity has almost come to signify believing good of men's neighbors. But Jacynth had often been cynically amused by the childish credulity with which a knot of men at his club would swallow evil stories, intrinsically improbable, and supported by no tittle of evidence that he would have dared to offer to the least enlightened of juries, merely because they were evil. For these gentlemen "knew the world." Something he dimly remembered hearing of the separation which had taken place between Lord and Lady Francis Onslow; but nothing clearly. He had not lived in their world; he did not now live in it.

      ​He had a poor opinion of Lord Castleton's intellect, but he believed him to be as truthful as he knew how to be. Jacynth was quite СКАЧАТЬ