CHAPTER XI.

IN THE PARK.

He only knew that he experienced a subtle pleasure in listening to the talk of this young girl, in watching the varying expression of her face, in admiring her beautiful eyes. The easy and graceful friendship they both seemed to entertain for each other was the simplest, most natural thing in the world. There could be no danger in it. Anerley's life had been too full of action to give him the deadly gift of introspection; but in no possible mood of self-analysis could he have regarded the temporary satisfaction of being near to and talking with the young actress as anything else than a pleasant and ordinary and harmless accident. He never for a moment dreamed of its producing any great result. Had the thing been suggested to him, he would have replied that both he and she understood each other perfectly: they had plenty to think of in life without indulging in folly: they had their separate work and interests and duties, and the casual pleasure they might obtain by meeting as acquaintances was nobody's concern but their own.

The first attitude of affection is exclusiveness. When one sees two young people sending glances across a dinner-table which are intelligible to themselves alone; when one perceives them whispering to each other while elsewhere the talk is general; when one observes them, on opposite sides at croquet, missing hoops, and slipping balls, and playing to aid each other in the most gratuitous, open, and unblushing manner, it needs no profound divination to detect a secret co-partnership between them. Two quite unselfish lovers immediately become selfish in their united position of antagonism to the rest of the world. And when the girl is pretty, the rest of the world consider such selfishness to be simply hateful.

These two young people, who were not lovers, nor had any intention of becoming lovers, walked up Victoria Road, and so made their way into the cool green shadow of the great elms and leafy lindens which make Kensington Gardens so delightful a lounge. It was now May--the only month in which London trees seem to look cheerful--and the weather was at its freshest and best.

"Mr. Melton proposes to close the theatre in a week or so," said Annie Brunel, "for a month, in order to have it done up anew. He is very anxious that I should not accept any engagement for that month; and I have been thinking I ought to take Mrs. Christmas down to the seaside, or perhaps over to the warm banks of the Rhine, for a week or two. Did you remark how very poorly she is?"

"I did," said Will. "I asked her about it. She seems to fancy that our madcap journey to Hounslow Heath brought the attack on."

"The grass was so wet, you know. I blame myself for it all; and indeed there's nothing I wouldn't do for the dear old creature. She was my only companion and friend for many a year."

"Won't you find it very dull going away all by yourselves?"

"Well, no. She is never dull. I never tire of her society a moment--she is so full of vivacity and kindliness and funny stories; but I do not like the idea of our going away anywhere alone. Hitherto, you know, I have always been in a manner compelled to go by an engagement."

"Bring her down to St. Mary-Kirby, and let Dove and you go about with her."

"Thank you. You have told me so much of that quiet little valley, and the quiet way of living there, that I should feel like an evil spirit invading paradise."

"Now, now--you are at it again," he said, laughing. "I won't have you malign our honest country folks like that. My mother would make you her daughter: she has a general faculty for making pets of everybody. And my father would give you a touch of the old squirelike courtesy he sometimes brings out when he is very grand and polite to some London young lady who comes down to see us."

She only smiled in reply--a trifle sadly.

"I should like to see a little of that peaceful sort of life--perhaps even to try it. Day after day to be always the same, always meeting the same people, always looking out on the same trees and fields and river, and hoping only for some change in the weather, or for a favourable turn to the fortunes of one's pet hero. But then other cares must come. That gentle little Dove, for instance--isn't she sitting just now wondering when you will come to see her, and getting quite vexed because you stay so long away?"

"You seem to have a great affection for Dove," he said.

"Haven't you?"

"Well, of course; who could help it?"

"If I were a man I should not try to help it; I should be prouder of the love of such a girl than of anything under heaven."

Such conversations are not common between young unmarried people, but neither of these two seemed to consider it strange that they should so talk; for, indeed, Annie Brunel assumed towards Will an amusingly matter-of-fact, kindly, almost maternal manner--so much so that, without hesitation she would have told him that a little more attention to the brushing of his rough brown hair and moustache might not have been inappropriate before visiting a lady. Sometimes he was amused, sometimes tantalized by this tone. He was a man verging towards thirty, who had all his wits about him, who had seen plenty of the world, and knew far more of its ways and beliefs and habits than he would have liked to reveal to his companion then beside him; and he could scarcely refrain from laughing at the airs of superior worldly wisdom which the young actress gave herself, revealing in the assumption the charming simplicity of her character.

They walked down one of the long avenues and crossed over into Hyde Park. The Row was very full at this time; and the brightness of the day seemed to have awoke an artificial briskness among the melancholy men and plethoric girls who had come out for their forced exercise.

"I have been in nearly every capital in Europe," said Will to his companion, "and I have never seen such a company of handsome men and women as you may see here almost any day. And I never saw anywhere people out to enjoy themselves looking so intensely sad over it."

"These are my employers;" said Miss Brunel, with a smile on her pale dark face. "These are the people who pay me to amuse them."

"Look at this big heavy man coming up now," said Will. "Look how he bobs in his saddle; one doesn't often see such a---- Why, it is----"

"Count Schoenstein," said Miss Brunel.

It was. And as the Count came up and saw Will walking by the side of a closely-veiled and gracefully-dressed young lady, he took off his hat in his finest manner, and was about to ride on. Perhaps it was the luxuriant black hair or the graceful figure of the young girl which made him pause for a second and recognise her. At all events, he no sooner saw who she was than he stopped his horse, clumsily got down from the saddle, and drawing the reins over the animal's head, came forward to the railing.

"The very two people whom I wished to see," he observed, with a pompous magnanimity. (Indeed there were several reasons why he was glad just then to observe that Annie Brunel had taken kindly to the young man whom he had introduced to her.) "Do you know, Miss Brunel, that Melton is going to close his theatre for a month?"

"Yes."

"Could anything be more opportune? Now listen to what I have to propose. You want a good holiday in this fine weather. Very well. I must go over to Schoenstein at once to see about some alterations and improvements I want made; and I propose to make it worth Mr. Anerley's while to go with me and superintend part of these improvements. That is an affair of necessity and business on my part and his; but why should you and Mrs. Christmas not accept our convoy over there? Even if you only go as far as one of the Rhine villages, we could see you safely that distance. Or if I could persuade you to come and see my place, such as it is--for a week or two. I think the excursion would be delightful; and if I can't entertain you as sumptuously as a king, yet I won't starve you, and I'll give you the best wine to be bought for good money in Baden."

Will coloured up at the hideous barbarity of the closing sentence; but Miss Brunel answered, good-naturedly:

"You're very kind indeed, Count; and I am sure the wine must be a great inducement to Mr. Anerley. But if I go anywhere for a holiday, it will be for Mrs. Christmas' sake; and I must see what she says about it first."

"Oh, if it is Mrs. Christmas," said the Count, with a laugh, "I must try to persuade her."

"No; I won't have any coercion. I will place the matter before her in all its details, and she shall decide. If we don't go, I hope you'll have a pleasant journey all the same."

"And as for you, Anerley, what do you say?"

"As our arrangement will be a business matter, we'll settle it another time," said Will, in a decided tone, which prevented the Count making further reference to buying and selling.

"I won't take any denial from any one of you," said the Count, with a prodigious laugh. "As for Mrs. Christmas, if that little woman dares to thwart me, I'll have her portrait published in the illustrated papers as the wife of Rip Van Winkle."

With which astounding witticism, the Count proceeded to get on horseback again--a rather difficult matter. Will held the stirrup for him, however; and eventually he shook himself into the saddle.

Annie Brunel had lifted her veil to speak to the Count; and as her companion now saw that there was a good deal of whispering and nodding going on among several knots of riders, he thought it prudent to withdraw himself and her into the Park. From thence they took their way back through Kensington Gardens, and so home.

"Would it look strange in English eyes," asked Miss Brunel, frankly, "if Mrs. Christmas and I, in travelling about, were to visit the Count's place?"

"I don't think so," said Will. "And if it did, it wouldn't matter. I think the party would be a very merry and pleasant one; and you would not allow Mrs. Christmas to feel that for her sake you were moping alone in some dull seaside lodgings. The Count is really very good-natured and kind; and I think you would enjoy the quaint old people and their manners down in the Black Forest."

"Have you been there?"

"Oh, yes. I have had a passing glance at every place, pretty nearly. There you may have a little deer-shooting, if you like: I have seen two ladies go out with guns, though they never did anything beyond letting one of the guns fall and nearly killing a keeper."

"Will it be very expensive going over?" she asked quite naively, as though she had been calculating the propriety of accepting a country engagement.

"Not at all. Are you going to say 'Yes'?"

"If Mrs. Christmas does, I will."