The First Sir Percy, Baroness Orczy [most important books to read TXT] 📗

heart even whilst it reduced him to a state of silent ecstasy. Much against his will he felt the hot tears welling to his eyes. With his wonted impatience he swept them away with the back of his hand.

“Curse me for a snivelling blockhead!” he muttered; and strode resolutely in the direction whence had come the sweet sad sound.

Then it was that he noticed that one of the doors which gave on the gallery was ajar. It was through this that the intoxicating sound had come to his ears. After an instant’s hesitation he pushed the door open. It gave on a small panelled room with deep-embrasured window, through which the grey evening light came in, shyly peeping. On the window-ledge a couple of pots of early tulips flaunted their crude colours against the neutral-tinted background, whilst on the shelves in a corner of the room gleamed the vivid blue of bright-patterned china plates. But the flowers and the china and the grey evening light were but momentary impressions, which did not fix themselves upon the man’s consciousness. All that he retained clearly was the vision of Gilda sitting at the instrument, her delicate hands resting upon the keys. She had ceased to play, and was looking straight out before her, and Diogenes could see her piquant profile silhouetted against the pale, slivery light. She had changed her stiff bridal robes for a plain gown of dark-coloured worsted, relieved only by dainty cuffs and collar of filmy Flemish lace.

At the sound of her husband’s footsteps she turned to look on him, and her whole face became wreathed in smiles. He was still booted and spurred, ready for the journey, with his long, heavy sword buckled to his belt; but he had put hat and mantle aside. The moment he came in Gilda put a finger to her lips.

“Sh-sh-sh!” she whispered. “If you make no noise they’ll not know you are here.”

She pointed across the room to where a heavy tapestry apparently masked another door.

“The Stadtholder is in there,” she added naively, “with father and Mynheer van den Poele and a number of other grave seigneurs. Kaatje is weeping and complaining somewhere down in mejuffrouw van den Poele’s arms. So I sat down to the virginal and left the door open, so that you might hear me sing; for if you heard I thought you would surely come. I was lonely,” she added simply, “and waiting for you.”

Quite enough in truth to make a man who is dizzy with love ten thousand times more dizzy still. And Diogenes was desperately in love, more so indeed than he had ever thought himself capable of being. He quietly unbuckled his sword, which clanged against the floor when he moved, and deposited in cautiously and noiselessly in an angle of the room. Then he tiptoed across to the virginal and knelt beside his beloved.

For a moment or two he rested his head against her cool white hands.

“To think,” he murmured, with a sigh of infinite longing, “that we might be halfway to Rotterdam by now! But I could not leave my old Pythagoras till I knew that he was in no danger.”

“What saith the physician, my lord?” she asked.

“I am waiting now for his final verdict. But he gives me every hope. In an hour I shall know.”

He paused, trying to read the varying play of emotions upon her face. From the other side of the tapestry came the low sound of subdued murmurings.

“It would not be too late,” he went on, slightly hesitating, taking her hands in his and forcing her glance to meet his. “You knew I meant to take you to England⁠—to carry you away⁠—tonight?”

She nodded.

“Yes, I knew,” she replied. “And I was glad to go.”

“Will you be afraid to come presently?” he urged, his voice quivering with excitement. “In the dark⁠—I know the road well. We could make Rotterdam by midnight⁠—and set sail for England tomorrow as I had prearranged⁠—”

“Just as you wish, my dear lord,” she assented simply.

“I could not wait, ma donna! I had planned it all⁠—to ride with you Rotterdam tonight⁠—and then tomorrow on the seas⁠—with you⁠—and England in sight, I could not wait!” he reiterated, almost pathetically, so great was his impatience.

“I am ready to start when you will, my lord,” she said again, with a smile.

“And you’ll not be afraid?” he insisted. “It will be dark⁠—and cold. We could not reach Rotterdam before midnight.”

“How should I be afraid of the darkness or of anything,” she retorted, “when I am with you. And how should I be cold, when I am nestling in your arms?”

He had his arms round her in an instant. He would have kissed her if he dared. But with the kiss all restraint would of a surety have vanished, as doth the snow in the warm embrace of the sun. He would have seized her then and there once more and carried her away. And this time no consideration on earth would have stayed him. With a muttered exclamation, he jumped to his feet and passed his slender hand across his forehead.

“Good St. Bavon!” he murmured whimsically. “Why are you so unkind to me tonight?”

And she, a little disappointed because, in truth, she had been ready for the kiss, rejoined with a quaint little pout:

“You are always appealing to St. Bavon, my dear lord! Why is that?”

“Because,” he replied very seriously, “St. Bavon is the patron saint of all men that are weak.”

She fixed great, wondering eyes on him. The reply was ambiguous; she did not quite understand the drift of it.

“But you, my lord, are so strong,” she objected.

It was perhaps too dark for her to see the expression in his face; but even so she felt herself unaccountably blushing under that gaze which she could not clearly see. Whereupon he uttered an ejaculation which sounded almost as if he were angered, and abruptly, without any warning, he turned on his heel and went out of the room, leaving Gilda