With the tremor of acute suspense, the old man watched and listened. Was it a good or an ill sign, his being so late?
The city of London, with its still roaring traffic and blaze of gas-lamps, did not contrast more powerfully with the silent shadows of the forest-grounds of Mortlake, than did the drawing-room of Lady May Penrose, brilliant with a profusion of light, and resonant with the gay conversation of inmates, all disposed to enjoy themselves, with the dim and vast room in which Sir Reginald sat silently communing with his own dismal thoughts.
Nothing so contagious as gaiety. Alice Arden, laughingly, was "making her book" rather prematurely in dozens of pairs of gloves, for the Derby. Lord Wynderbroke was deep in it. So was Vivian Darnley.
"Your brother and I are to take the reins, turn about, Lady May says. He's a crack whip. He's better than I, I think," said Vivian to Alice Arden.
"You mustn't upset us, though. I am so afraid of you crack whips!" said Alice. "Nor let your horses run away with us; I've been twice run away with already."
"I don't the least wonder at Miss Arden's being run away with very often," said Lord Wynderbroke, with all the archness of a polite man of fifty.
"Very prettily said, Wynderbroke," smiled Lady May. "And where is your brother? I thought he'd have turned up to-night," asked she of Alice.
"I quite forgot. He was to see papa this evening. They wanted to talk over something together."
"Oh, I see!" said Lady May, and she became thoughtful.
What was the exact nature of the interest which good Lady May undoubtedly took in Richard Arden? Was it quite so motherly as years might warrant? At that time people laughed over it, and were curious to see the progress of the comedy. Here was light and gaiety--light within, lamps without; spirited talk in young anticipation of coming days of pleasure; and outside the roll of carriage-wheels making a humming bass to this merry treble.
Over the melancholy precincts of Mortlake the voiceless darkness of night descends with unmitigated gloom. The centre--the brain of this dark place--is the house: and in a large dim room, near the smouldering fire, sits the image that haunts rather than inhabits it.
Sir Reginald Arden had fallen into a doze, as he sat by the fire with his _Revue des Deux Mondes_, slipping between his finger and thumb, on his knees. He was recalled by Crozier's voice, and looking up, he saw, standing near the door, as if in some slight hesitation, a figure not seen for two years before.