“Yes, I suppose I must have,” she concluded—with an obvious air of genuine surprise.
“We sometimes find that we have known—in a way—things that we never realized that we knew,” said Sir Paget—“much what I said before. But—well, you and Mrs. Knyvett both seem to have had somewhere in your minds the idea—the speculation—that Lucinda might possibly do what she has done. Can you tell us at all why? Because that sort of thing doesn’t generally happen.”
“By God, no!” Waldo grunted out. “And I don’t see much good in all this jaw about it.”
A slight, still pretty, flush showed itself on Aunt Bertha’s wrinkled cheeks—hers seemed happy wrinkles, folds that smiles had turned, not furrows plowed by sorrow—“I’ve never been married,” she said, “and I was only once in love. He was killed in the Zulu war—when you were no more than a boy, Paget. So perhaps I’m no judge. But—darling Waldo, can you forgive me? She’s never of late looked like—like a girl waiting for her lover. That’s all I’ve got to go upon, Paget, absolutely all.”
I saw Waldo’s hands clench; he sat where he was, but seemed to do it with an effort.
“Nothing to be got out of her just now. But, of course, if she really had the idea, it must have been because of Arsenio Valdez!”
The name seemed a spur-prick to Waldo; he almost jumped to his feet. “Oh, we sit here talking while——!” he mumbled. Then he raised his voice, giving his words a clearer, a more decisive articulation. “I’ve told you what I’m going to do. Julius can come with me or not, as he likes.”
“No, Waldo, you’re not going to do it. I love—I have loved—Lucinda. I held my arms open to her. I thought I was to have what I have never had, what I have envied many men for having—a daughter. Well, now——” his voice, which had broken into tenderness, grew firm and indeed harsh again. “But now—what is she now?”
These words, from Waldo’s lips, were to me almost incredible. Not for their cruelty—I knew that he could be cruel in his rage—but for their coarse vulgarity. I did not understand how he could use them. A second later he so far repented—so far recovered his manners—as to say, “I beg your pardon for that, Aunt Bertha.”
“My poor boy!” was all the old lady said.
“Whatever she may be—even if she were really all that up to to-day you thought—you mustn’t go after her now, Waldo—neither you nor Julius with you.” He paused a moment, and then went on slowly. “In my deliberate judgment, based on certain facts which have reached me, and reënforced by my knowledge of certain persons in high positions, all Europe will be at war in a week, and this country will be in it—in a war to the death. You fellows will be wanted; we shall all be wanted. Is that the moment to find you two traipsing over the Continent on the track of a runaway couple, getting yourselves into prison, perhaps; anyhow quite uncertain of being able to get home and do your duty as gentlemen? And you, Waldo, are a soldier!”