第26章

Tomorrow, and next day, we are disengaged.Which day shall it be?"Romayne still resisted."You are very kind.In my state of health, I am unwilling to make engagements which I may not be able to keep."Lady Loring was just as resolute on her side.She appealed to Stella."Mr.Romayne persists, my dear, in putting me off with excuses.Try if you can persuade him.""_I_ am not likely to have any influence, Adelaide."The tone in which she replied struck Romayne.He looked at her.

Her eyes, gravely meeting his eyes, held him with a strange fascination.She was not herself conscious how openly all that was noble and true in her nature, all that was most deeply and sensitively felt in her aspirations, spoke at that moment in her look.Romayne's face changed: he turned pale under the new emotion that she had roused in him.Lady Loring observed him attentively.

"Perhaps you underrate your influence, Stella?" she suggested.

Stella remained impenetrable to persuasion."I have only been introduced to Mr.Romayne half an hour since," she said."I am not vain enough to suppose that I can produce a favorable impression on any one in so short a time."She had expressed, in other words, Romayne's own idea of himself, in speaking of her to Lord Loring.He was struck by the coincidence.

"Perhaps we have begun, Miss Eyrecourt, by misinterpreting one another," he said."We may arrive at a better understanding when I have the honor of meeting you again."He hesitated and looked at Lady Loring.She was not the woman to let a fair opportunity escape her."We will say to-morrow evening," she resumed, "at seven o'clock.""To-morrow," said Romayne.He shook hands with Stella, and left the picture gallery.

Thus far, the conspiracy to marry him promised even more hopefully than the conspiracy to convert him.And Father Benwell, carefully instructing Penrose in the next room, was not aware of it!

But the hours, in their progress, mark the march of events as surely as they mark the march of time.The day passed, the evening came--and, with its coming, the prospects of the conversion brightened in their turn.

Let Father Benwell himself relate how it happened--in an extract from his report to Rome, written the same evening.

"...I had arranged with Penrose that he should call at my lodgings, and tell me how he had prospered at the first performance of his duties as secretary to Romayne.

"The moment he entered the room the signs of disturbance in his face told me that something serious had happened.I asked directly if there had been any disagreement between Romayne and himself.

"He repeated the word with every appearance of surprise.

'Disagreement?' he said.'No words can tell how sincerely I feel for Mr.Romayne.I cannot express to you, Father, how eager I am to be of service to him!'

"Relieved, so far, I naturally asked what had happened.Penrose betrayed a marked embarrassment in answering my question.

" 'I have innocently surprised a secret,' he said, 'on which Ihad no right to intrude.All that I can honorably tell you, shall be told.Add one more to your many kindnesses--don't command me to speak, when it is my duty toward a sorely-tried man to be silent, even to you.'

"It is needless to say that I abstained from directly answering this strange appeal.'Let me hear what you can tell,' I replied, 'and then we shall see.'