Suddenly it struck him that his silence must seem almost as accusatory as that of the men he had despised for turning from her; but before he could find the fitting word she had cut him short with a question.
“Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the morning.”
“An hotel–here–that you can go to alone? It’s not possible.”
She met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. “What IS, then? It’s too wet to sleep in the gardens.”
“But there must be some one–-”
“Some one to whom I can go? Of course–any number–but at this hour? You see my change of plan was rather sudden–-”
“Good God–if you’d listened to me!” he cried, venting his helplessness in a burst of anger.
She still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. “But haven’t I?” she rejoined. “You advised me to leave the yacht, and I’m leaving it.”
He saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour was past.
She had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty, like some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile.
“Lily!” he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but–”Oh, not now,” she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her recovered composure: “Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since you’re so kindly here to help me–-”
He gathered himself up at the challenge. “You will do as I tell you? There’s but one thing, then; you must go straight to your cousins, the Stepneys.”
“Oh–” broke from her with a movement of instinctive resistance; but he insisted: “Come–it’s late, and you must appear to have gone there directly.”
He had drawn her hand into his arm, but she held him back with a last gesture of protest. “I can’t–I can’t–not that–you don’t know Gwen: you mustn’t ask me!”
“I must ask you–you must obey me,” he persisted, though infected at heart by her own fear.
Her voice sank to a whisper: “And if she refuses?”–but, “Oh, trust me–trust me!” he could only insist in return; and yielding to his touch, she let him lead her back in silence to the edge of the square.
In the cab they continued to remain silent through the brief drive which carried them to the illuminated portals of the Stepneys’ hotel. Here he left her outside, in the darkness of the raised hood, while his name was sent up to Stepney, and he paced the showy hall, awaiting the latter’s descent. Ten minutes later the two men passed out together between the gold-laced custodians of the threshold; but in the vestibule Stepney drew up with a last flare of reluctance.
“It’s understood, then?” he stipulated nervously, with his hand on Selden’s arm. “She leaves tomorrow by the early train–and my wife’s asleep, and can’t be disturbed.”
The blinds of Mrs. Peniston’s drawing-room were drawn down against the oppressive June sun, and in the sultry twilight the faces of her assembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of bereavement. They were all there: Van Alstynes, Stepneys and Melsons–even a stray Peniston or two, indicating, by a greater latitude in dress and manner, the fact of remoter relationship and more settled hopes. The Peniston side was, in fact, secure in the knowledge that the bulk of Mr. Peniston’s property “went back”; while the direct connection hung suspended on the disposal of his widow’s private fortune and on the uncertainty of its extent. Jack Stepney, in his new character as the richest nephew, tacitly took the lead, emphasizing his importance by the deeper gloss of his mourning and the subdued authority of his manner; while his wife’s bored attitude and frivolous gown proclaimed the heiress’s disregard of the insignificant interests at stake. Old Ned Van Alstyne, seated next to her in a coat that made affliction dapper, twirled his white moustache to conceal the eager twitch of his lips; and Grace Stepney, red-nosed and smelling of crape, whispered emotionally to Mrs. Herbert Melson: “I couldn’t bear to see the Niagara anywhere else!”