Mr. Caryll was almost happy.
He reclined on a long chair, supported by pillows cunningly set for him by the deft hands of Leduc, and took his ease and indulged his day-dreams in Lord Ostermore's garden. He sat within the cool, fragrant shade of a privet arbor, interlaced with flowering lilac and laburnum, and he looked out upon the long sweep of emerald lawn and the little patch of ornamental water where the water-lilies gaped their ivory chalices to the morning sun.
He looked thinner, paler and more frail than was his habit, which is not wonderful, considering that he had been four weeks abed while his wound was mending. He was dressed, again by the hands of the incomparable Leduc, in a deshabille of some artistry. A dark-blue dressing-gown of flowered satin fell open at the waist; disclosing sky-blue breeches and pearl-colored stockings, elegant shoes of Spanish leather with red heels and diamond buckles. His chestnut hair had been dressed with as great care as though he were attending a levee, and Leduc had insisted upon placing a small round patch under his left eye, that it might - said Leduc - impart vivacity to a countenance that looked over-wan from his long confinement.
He reclined there, and, as I have said, was almost happy.
The creature of sunshine that was himself at heart, had broken through the heavy clouds that had been obscuring him. An oppressive burden was lifted from his mind and conscience.
That sword-thrust through the back a month ago had been guided, he opined, by the hand of a befriending Providence;for although he had, as you see, survived it, it had none the less solved for him that hateful problem he could never have solved for himself, that problem whose solution,- no matter which alternative he had adopted - must have brought him untold misery afterwards.
As it was, during the weeks that he had lain helpless, his life attached to him by but the merest thread, the chance of betraying Lord Ostermore was gone, nor - the circumstances being such as they were - could Sir Richard Everard blame him that he had let it pass.
Thus he knew peace; knew it as only those know it who have sustained unrest and can appreciate relief from it.
Nature had made him a voluptuary, and reclining there in an ease which the languor born of his long illness rendered the more delicious, inhaling the tepid summer air that came to him laden with a most sweet attar from the flowering rose-garden, he realized that with all its cares life may be sweet to live in youth and in the month of June.
He sighed, and smiled pensively at the water-lilies; nor was his happiness entirely and solely the essence of his material ease. This was his third morning out of doors, and on each of the two mornings that were gone Hortensia had borne him company, coming with the charitable intent of lightening his tedium by reading to him, but remaining to talk instead.
The most perfect friendliness had prevailed between them; a camaraderie which Mr. Caryll had been careful not to dispel by any return to such speeches as those which had originally offended but which seemed now mercifully forgotten.
He was awaiting her, and his expectancy heightened for him the glory of the morning, increased the meed of happiness that was his. But there was more besides. Leduc, who stood slightly behind him, fussily, busy about a little table on which were books and cordials, flowers and comfits, a pipe and a tobacco-jar, had just informed him for the first time that during the more dangerous period of his illness Mistress Winthrop had watched by his bedside for many hours together upon many occasions, and once - on the day after he had been wounded, and while his fever was at its height - Leduc, entering suddenly and quietly, had surprised her in tears.
All this was most sweet news to Mr. Caryll. He found that between himself and his half-brother there lay an even deeper debt that he had at first supposed, and already acknowledged.
In the delicious contemplation of Hortensia in tears beside him stricken all but to the point of death, he forgot entirely his erstwhile scruples that being nameless he had no name to offer her. In imagination he conjured up the scene. It made, he found, a very pretty picture. He would smoke upon it.
"Leduc, if you were to fill me a pipe of Spanish - ""Monsieur has smoked one pipe already," Leduc reminded him.
"You are inconsequent, Leduc. It is a sign of advancing age.
Repress it. The pipe!" And he flicked impatient fingers.
"Monsieur is forgetting that the doctor - "
"The devil take the doctor," said Mr. Caryll with finality.
""Parfaitement!" answered the smooth Leduc. "Over the bridge we laugh at the saint. Now that we are cured, the devil take the doctor by all means."A ripple of laughter came to applaud Leduc's excursion into irony. The arbor had another, narrower entrance, on the left.
Hortensia had approached this, all unheard on the soft turf, and stood there now, a heavenly apparition in white flimsy garments, head slightly a-tilt, eyes mocking, lips laughing, a heavy curl of her dark hair falling caressingly into the hollow where white neck sprang from whiter shoulder.
"You make too rapid a recovery, sir," said she.
"It comes of learning how well I have been nursed," he answered, making shift to rise, and he laughed inwardly to see the red flush of confusion spread over the milk-white skin, the reproachful shaft her eyes let loose upon Leduc.
She came forward swiftly to check his rising; buff he was already on his feet, proud of his return to strength, vain to display it. "Nay," she reproved him. "If you are so headstrong, I shall leave you.""If you do, ma'am. I vow here, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, that I shall go home to-day, and on foot.""You would kill yourself," she told him.
