_ PART I CHAPTER XXVI. THE CALL OF APOLLO
Dinah's strength came back to her in leaps and bounds, and three weeks after the de Vignes's departure she was almost herself again. The season was drawing to a close. The holidays were over, and English people were turning homeward. Very reluctantly Isabel had to admit that her charge was well enough for the journey back. Mrs. Bathurst wrote in an insistent strain, urging that the time had come for her to return, and no further excuse could be invented for keeping her longer.
They decided to return themselves and take Dinah to her home, Isabel having determined to make the acquaintance of the redoubtable Mrs. Bathurst, and persuade her to spare her darling to them again in the summer. The coming parting was hard to face, so hard that Dinah could not bear to speak of it. She shed a good many tears in private, as Isabel was well aware; but she never willingly made any reference to the ordeal she so dreaded.
The only time she voluntarily broached the subject was when she entreated to be allowed to go down to the last dance that was to be held in the hotel. It chanced that this was fixed for the night before their own departure, and Isabel demurred somewhat; for though Dinah had shaken off most of her invalid habits, she was still far from robust.
"You will be so tired in the morning, darling," she protested gently, while Dinah knelt beside her, earnestly pleading. "You will get that tiresome side-ache, and you won't be fit to travel."
"I shall--I shall," Dinah assured her. "Oh, please, dear, just this once--just this once--let me have this one more fling! I shall never have another chance. I'm sure I never shall."
Isabel's hand stroked the soft dark hair caressingly. She saw that Dinah was very near to tears. "I don't believe I ought to say Yes, dear child," she said. "You know I hate to deny you anything. But if it were to do you harm, I should never forgive myself."
"It couldn't! It shan't!" declared Dinah, almost incoherent in her vehemence. "It isn't as if I wanted to dance every dance. I'd come and sit out with you in between. And if I got tired, you could take me away. I would go directly if you said so. Really I would."
She was hard to resist, kneeling there with her arms about Isabel and her bright eyes lifted. Isabel took the sweet face between her hands and kissed it.
"Let me ask Scott what he thinks!" she said. "I want to give in to you, Dinah darling, but it's against my judgment. If it is against his judgment too, will you be content to give it up?"
"Oh, of course," said Dinah instantly. She was confident that Scott--that kind and gentle friend of hers--would deny her nothing. It seemed almost superfluous to ask him.
The words had scarcely left her lips when his quiet knock came at the sitting-room door, and he entered.
She looked round at him with a smile of quick welcome. "I'll give it up in a minute if he says so," she said.
Isabel turned in her chair. "Come here, Stumpy!" she said. "We want your advice. We are talking about the dance to-night. Dinah has set her heart on going. Would it--do you think it would--do her any harm?"
Scott came up to them in his halting way. He looked at Dinah pressed close to his sister's side, and his smile was very kindly as he said, "Poor little Cinderella! It's hard lines; but, you know, the doctor's last words to you were a warning against over-exerting yourself."
"But I shouldn't," she assured him eagerly. "Really, truly, I shouldn't! I walked all the way to the village with you yesterday, and wasn't a bit tired--or hardly a bit--when I got back."
"You looked jaded to death," he said.
"I am afraid it is thumbs down," said Isabel, a touch of regret in her voice.
"Oh no,--no!" entreated Dinah. "Mr. Studley, please--please say I may go! I promise I won't dance too much. I promise I'll stop directly I'm tired."
"My dear child," Scott said, "it would be sheer madness for you to attempt to dance at all. Isabel," he turned to his sister with most unusual sharpness, "how can you tantalize her in this way? Say No at once! You know perfectly well she isn't fit for it."
Isabel made no attempt to argue the point. "You hear, Dinah?" she said.
A quick throb of anger went through Dinah. She disengaged herself quickly, and stood up. "Mr. Studley," she said in a voice that quivered, "it's not right--it's not fair! How can you know what is good for me? And even if you did, what--what right--" She broke off, trembling and holding to Isabel's chair to steady herself.
Scott's eyes, very level, very kind, were looking straight at her in a fashion that checked the hot words on her lips. "My child, no right whatever," he said. "I have no more power to control your actions than the man in the moon. But if you want my approval to your scheme, I can't give it you. I don't approve, and because I don't, I tell Isabel that she ought to refuse to carry it through. I have no right to control her either, but I think my opinion means something to her. I hope it does at least."
He looked at Isabel, but she said nothing. Only she put her arm about Dinah as she stood.
There followed a few moments of very difficult silence; then abruptly the mutiny went out of Dinah's face and attitude.
"I'm horrid," she said, in a voice half-choked. "Forgive me! You--you shouldn't spoil me so."
"Oh, don't, please!" said Scott. "I am infernally sorry. I know what it means to you."
He took out his cigarette-case and turned away with a touch of embarrassment. She saw that for some reason he was moved.
Impulsively she left Isabel and came to him. "Don't think any more about it!" she said. "I'll go to bed and be good."
"You always are," said Scott, faintly smiling.
"No, no, I'm not! What a fib! You know I'm not. But I'm going to be good this time--so that you shall have something nice to remember me by." Dinah's voice quivered still, but she managed to smile.
He gave her a quick look. "You will always be the pleasantest memory I have," he said.
The words were quietly spoken, so quietly that they sounded almost matter-of-fact. But Dinah flushed with pleasure, detecting the sincerity in his voice.
"It's very nice of you to say that," she said, "especially as I deserve it so little. Thank you, Mr.--Scott!" She uttered the name timidly. She had never ventured to use it before.
He held out his hand to her. "Oh, drop the prefix!" he said. "Call me Stumpy like the rest of the world!"
But Dinah shook her head with vehemence. There were tears standing in her eyes, but she smiled through them. "I will not call you Stumpy!" she declared. "It doesn't suit you a bit. I never even think of you by that name. It--it is perfectly ludicrous applied to you!"
"Some people think I am ludicrous," observed Scott.
His hand grasped hers firmly for a moment, and let it go. The steadfast friendliness in his eyes shone out like a beacon. And there came to Dinah a swift sense of great and uplifting pride at the thought that she numbered this man among her friends.
The moment passed, but the warmth at her heart remained. She went back to Isabel, and slipped down into the shelter of her arm, feeling oddly shy and also inexplicably happy. Her disappointment had shrunk to a negligible quantity. She even wondered at herself for having cared so greatly about so trifling a matter.
There came the firm tread of a man's feet outside the door, and it swung open. Eustace entered with his air of high confidence.
"Ah, Stumpy, there you are! I want you. Well, Miss Bathurst, what about to-night?"
She faced him bravely from Isabel's side. "I've promised to go to bed early, as usual," she said.
"What? You're not dancing?" She saw his ready frown. "Well, you will come and look on anyway. Isabel, you must show for once."
He spoke imperiously. Isabel looked up. "I am sorry, Eustace. It is out of the question," she said coldly. "Both Dinah and I are retiring early in preparation for to-morrow."
He bit his lip. "This is too bad. Miss Bathurst, don't you want to come down? It's for the last time."
Dinah hesitated, and Scott came quietly to her rescue.
"She is being prudent against her own inclination, old chap. Don't make it hard for her!"
"What a confounded shame!" said Eustace.
"No, no, it isn't!" said Dinah. "It is quite right. I am not going to think any more about it."
He laughed with a touch of mockery. "Which means you will probably think about it all night. Well, you will have the reward of virtue anyhow, which ought to be very satisfying. Come along, Stumpy! I want you to catch the post."
He bore his brother off with him, and Dinah went rather wistfully to help Biddy pack. She had done right, she knew; but it was difficult to stifle the regret in her heart. She had so longed for that one last dance, and it seemed to her that she had treated Sir Eustace somewhat shabbily also. She was sure that he was displeased, and the thought of it troubled her. For she had almost promised him that last dance.
"Arrah thin, Miss Dinah dear, don't ye look so sad at all!" counselled Biddy. "Good times pass, but there's always good times to come while ye're young. And it's the bonny face ye've got on ye. Sure, there'll be a fine wedding one of these days. There's a prince looking for ye, or me name's not Biddy Maloney."
Dinah tried to smile, but her heart was heavy. She could not share Biddy's cheery belief in the good times to come, and she was quite sure that no prince would ever come her way.
Sir Eustace--that king among men--might think of her sometimes, but not seriously, oh no, not seriously. He had so many other interests. It was only her dancing that drew him, and he would never have another opportunity of enjoying that.
She rested in the afternoon at Isabel's desire, but she did not sleep. Some teasing sprite had set a waltz refrain running in her brain, and it haunted her perpetually. She went down to the vestibule with Isabel for tea, and here Scott joined them; but Sir Eustace did not put in an appearance. In their company she sought to be cheerful, and in a measure succeeded; but the thought of the morrow pressed upon her. In another brief twenty-four hours this place where she had first known the wonder and the glory of life would know her no more. In two days she would be back in the old bondage, chained once more to the oar, with the dread of her mother ever present in her heart, however fair the world might be.
She could keep her depression more or less at bay in the presence of her friends, but when later she went to her room to prepare for dinner something like desperation seized her. How was she going to bear it? One last wild fling would have helped her, but this inaction made things infinitely worse, made things intolerable.
While she dressed, she waged a fierce struggle against her tears. She knew that Isabel would be greatly distressed should she detect them, and to hurt Isabel seemed to her the acme of selfish cruelty. She would not give way! She would not!
And then--suddenly she heard a step in the corridor, and her heart leapt. Well she knew that careless, confident tread! But what was he doing there? Why had he come to her door?
With bated breath she stood and listened. Yes, he had paused. In a moment she heard a rustle on the floor. A screw of paper appeared under the door as though blown in by a wandering wind. Then the careless feet retreated again, and she thought she heard him whistling below his breath.
Eagerly she swooped forward and snatched up the note. Her hands shook so that she could scarcely open it. Trembling, she stood under the light to read it.
It was headed in a bold hand: "To Daphne." And below in much smaller writing she read: "Come to the top of the stairs when the band plays _Simple Aveu_, and leave the rest to me.
"APOLLO."
A wild thrill went through her. But could she? Dared she? Had she not practically promised Isabel that she would go to bed?
Yet how could she go, and leave this direct invitation, which was almost a command, unanswered? And it was only one dance--only one dance! Would it be so very wrong to snatch just that one?
The thought of Scott came to her and the look of sincerity in his eyes when he had told her that she would always be the pleasantest memory he had. But she thrust it from her almost fiercely. Ah no, no, no! She could not let him deprive her thus of this one last gaiety. Apollo had called her. It only remained for her to obey.
She dressed in a fever of excitement, and hid the note--that precious note--in her bosom. She would meet him at dinner, and he would look for an answer. How should she convey it? And oh, what answer should she give?
Looking back afterwards, it seemed to her that Fate had pressed her hard that night,--so hard that resistance was impossible. When she was dressed in the almost childishly simple muslin she looked herself in the eyes and fancied that there was something in her face that she had never seen there before. It was something that pleased her immensely giving her a strangely new self-confidence. She did not wot that it was the charm of her coming womanhood that had burst into sudden flower.
At the last moment she cast all her scruples away from her, and snatched up a slip of paper.
"I will be there. Daphne," were the words she wrote, and though her conscience smote her as she did it, she stifled it fiercely. Had she not promised him that one dance long ago?
She met him at dinner with a face of smiling unconcern. The new force within had imbued her with a wondrous strength. She exulted in the thought of her power over him, transient though she knew it to be. Deep down in her heart she was afraid, yet was she wildly daring. It was her last night, and she was utterly reckless.
She left her note in his hand with the utmost coolness when she bade him good night in the vestibule. She bade good night to Scott also, but she met his eyes for no more than a second; and then she had to stifle afresh the sharp pang at her heart.
She went away up the stairs with Isabel, leaving them smoking over their coffee, leaving also the dreamy strains of the band, the gay laughter and movement of the happy crowd that drifted towards the ballroom.
Isabel accompanied her to her room. "You are a dear, good child," she said tenderly, as she held her for a last kiss. "I shall never forget how sweetly you gave up the thing you wanted so much."
Dinah clung to her fast for a moment or two, and her hold was passionate. "Oh, don't praise me for that!" she whispered into Isabel's neck. "I am not good at all. I am very bad."
She almost tore herself free a second later, and Isabel, divining that any further demonstration from her would cause a breakdown, bade her a loving good night and went away.
Dinah stood awhile struggling for self-control. She had been perilously near to baring her soul to Isabel in those moments of tenderness. Even now the impulse urged her to run after her and tell her of the temptation to which she was yielding. She forced it down with clenched hands, telling herself over and over that it was her last chance, her last chance, and she must not lose it. And so at length it passed; and with it passed also the pricks of conscience that had so troubled her. She emerged from the brief struggle with a sense of mad triumph. The spirit of adventure had entered into her, and she no longer paused to count the cost.
"I expect I shall be sorry in the morning," she said to herself. "But to-night--oh, to-night--nothing matters except Apollo!"
She whisked to the door and set it ajar. The dance-music drew her, drew her, like the voice of a siren. For that one night she would live again. She would feel his arm about her and the magic in her brain. Already her feet yearned to the alluring rhythm. She leaned against the door-post, and gave herself up to her dream. Yet once more the wine of the gods was held to her lips. She would drink deeply, deeply. _