Anne Warner

“ The black staghound, Tara, was with her, and at her command he preceded her, bounding into the group with Nina's umbrella gripped in his lean jaws.
Every woman screamed, and every man who was not already standing sprang to his feet.
"God bless my soul!" cried the duke. "How did that beast get here? It's Nina Darling's. There isn't another such in all England."
Lord Waltheof reached for the umbrella, which Tara gave up without protest, and turned with expectant gaze toward the door.
"It's Mrs. Darling's umbrella," said Wally, examining the initials on the silver-gilt handle. "She must be here." ”

“ Those at the sides of his mouth moved outward, which was as near as Lord Kneedrock's solicitor ever came to a smile.
Nina sprang to her feet in a rage. "You are quite impossible, Mr. Widdicombe!" she flared. "There are none so blind as those that won't see. I came to you for assistance, and you treat the matter—the very grave matter—as though it were a joke."
"I treat all matters just as I find them, Mrs. Darling," was his calm retort.
"Viscount Kneedrock is mad," she affirmed, mincing the manifest fact no longer. ”

“ He pressed close against Nina's legs and cowered as though he had seen a ghost.
And then Kneedrock laughed. It was the very last thing that they expected, and the strain tightened to the point of snapping.
Because of everything—the whole wretched ensemble—the laugh seemed wilder, madder, weirder, possibly, than it was. It broke off in a sort of choking gurgle, and in a flash the laugher had wheeled about and was swallowed up in the murk of the passage.
This only, probably, could have aroused Nina to action. Swiftly as light itself she sped after him with an imploring cry of:
"Hal! Hal!" ”

“ Nina admitted gaily, "but when you hear my story I'm sure you'll all forgive me."
It is hard for most women to forgive a pretty woman, but to forgive a pretty woman who has suddenly become ugly is not so difficult.
They—the women, that is—were disposed to overlook the poor creature's rudeness. The men were always her slaves, so they didn't count. It was the women she had appealed to, anyhow.
"Nina never is brutal," declared the duke. "I say, Doody, haven't I always said—"
But no one was listening, not even the duchess, who rarely failed to confirm him. ”

“ Nina had slipped away, and the other women were having a thoroughly enjoyable time talking about her.
"She doesn't really want him, does she?" the marchioness asked Lady Bellingdown. "I thought that there was something very bad about him. If he's so nice, why didn't the mother marry him herself?"
"That's what every one is asking," said the duchess, noting her hostess's embarrassment. "I'm sure I think he's very nice myself. And so pathetic, too. We're going to ask him to Puddlewood later."
"I don't think that Nina will ever marry again," observed Charlotte Grey. ”

“ Mrs. Veynol checked him. "You are a gentleman and wish to take the blame on your own shoulders; but, no matter what you said, I shouldn't believe you. Fortunately, I know my own daughter at last."
"It—it was the only way," Rosamond faltered.
"It was a very wicked way. Still, I don't see how I am to blame you. Caryll is so fascinating it is all I can do to resist him myself. But—oh, dear, I had quite forgotten!"
She turned abruptly to where a fair-haired young man, slightly round-shouldered, stood hat in hand behind her. "Let me present Mr. Miles O'Connor, Lady Carleigh—Sir Caryll Carleigh." ”

“ The world has bruised us both—has tried to make outcasts of us both—has blackened us falsely.
"Let us go away together—to Yukon, to Ceylon, to where you will. Let us build for ourselves a free life—a new, clean life, out in those free, new clean surroundings."
He was actually surprised at his own eloquence and at how in earnest he felt; and how chivalrous. But he was still more surprised at how keen he was to prove to Rosamond that he had spoken truthfully.
"But I'm disfigured," said Nina behind her white windings. "Horridly disfigured." ”

“ He sent her the magnificent skin of a tiger he had shot in India, and sometimes it pleased her to crouch on this, sensuously delighted by the contact, while remembering with a curious mingling of emotions how Kneedrock had declared her to be the reincarnation of just such another creature of the jungle, cruel, remorseless, blood-lusting—a tigress in the guise of a woman. ”

“ It was generally conceded that the Earl of Dumphreys was eccentric. He was an ardent disciple of Tolstoy, and lived on his estate in the North in the simplest fashion, unshaven and unshorn, and affecting coarse girdled robes and sandals.
Despite his titles and his lands, he was as much out of the world as though he rested with his sires beneath the gray stones of Dumphreys Abbey.
"Of course," said Nina, her face drawn, "we must wire at once for the earl." ”

“ Of course there was no escape.
"We—we're going to be married at once," Carleigh explained, stammeringly. And Rosamond, nodding, blushed as red as a peony.
"I am glad," Cecile congratulated.
"But—but—you see," the young baronet continued, one arm still held possessively about his fiancée's waist, "while we're delighted that you should know, we aren't quite ready to tell society in general."
"I understand perfectly. Rely on me to preserve your confidence. I think it is positively lovely."
"Yes, isn't it?" said Rosamond. "Caryll and I were made for one another. ”

“ The good in me comes back. I get my devil into harness once more. Have I sinned again? Have I fallen into the pit afresh? Does this man really and truly mean what he says? No, no, no! Oh, no!"
He did pull her down, and he got his arm around her.
"Why, love! Why, precious!" he murmured soothingly. "Dear, dear girl! Darling Nina!"
"I don't love you!" she cried vehemently. "I never can love you! I do love one man and I can't love any other. It's no use trying."
And then she was out of his grasp, striking him away as roughly as his other betrayer had done.
Carleigh stood paralyzed. ”

“ Nina saw him first; for she was facing that way. Most women would have screamed; she only became rigid. It was the situation in the Umballa bungalow over again—save that there was no pistol at hand, and Andrews knew now that the cobra was made of bronze.
Nina became rigid; Gerald sensed the unexpected. He looked over his shoulder and caught the glare of Kneedrock's eyes piercing the gloomy half-light. ”

“ How the duchess enjoys telling it! What she knows and what she thinks. And she's my great-aunt. Fancy what fun it has afforded the rest of the world!"
"That is unworthy of you," Carleigh rebuked under his breath—"to rail about the horror that has blighted your life. I can't laugh over horrors. They turn me cold in the night."
"Ah, but I've grown used to mine," she returned lightly. "And besides, it wasn't so bad as what followed—as the realizing that I could never be clean again. I wonder if all those who've sinned as I have sinned are trying to fill an empty life as I've been trying!" ”

“ But Nina didn't move. Her body had ceased to quiver. She lay as one dead. Kneedrock's tirade, reasonless, rhymeless, with its seemingly endless iteration and reiteration of ideas, phrases, words; all combining to form one great outpouring volume of contemptuous, reproachful, mad rebuke, had stunned her—deafened her.
Andrews, listening, heard the abrupt break from harangue to expressed purpose, and noted that there was, from his companion, no response. It was not his desire to disturb Nina, nor to again show himself to Kneedrock. ”

“ Then it abruptly rushed over him how much he had been eased of his pain in these few hours, and he went up and kissed Lady Bellingdown's cheek impulsively, with: "Oh, Aunt Kitty! When will you have a spare minute for me, alone? I've such a lot to tell you."
In his way he was as uncontrolled as Nina, and quite as given to bursting forth in unwary speech.
"Tell it all to her, dear boy," she advised, looking up into his flushed brightness. "She's such a sweet, sympathetic woman. And she'll help you. She helps every man. She has wonderful ways with her." ”

“ She paused a second or more, and then turned toward him, her eyes narrowed in that characteristic style which Kneedrock had described so harshly.
"But it is glorious, all the same," she cried with an odd little soft rapture. "You haven't come to that yet. You've not gone on to where one fights for the mere joy of loving love, in life, as one fights for breath in a suffocating pit. Why shouldn't I love to love? ”

“ Veynol laughed ringingly.
"Not at all," she denied. "Marriage is the least irrevocable of steps. Give my daughter the grounds and I promise you she will divorce you."
"I have messed things up," mused Carleigh dismally.
"You see, I've lost neither time nor effort to let you know," said Mrs. Veynol. "As a gentleman, though, you will preserve my confidence. As a son-in-law I have told you what I could not even as a futur."
"But the whole world knows it," he retorted. "It has been published." ”

“ Miss Veynol looked down, shivered slightly, rose, and moved over to a window. Carleigh rose, too, and followed her.
"Mama is in Ireland," she answered at length, in a low, sweet voice. "She told me before she went—she—" Then she stopped.
He threw his gaze over her from head to feet. He felt bitter and scornful, and yet the memories crowded fast. After all, she was very lovely, and—odd how he had seen her face early this very morning when for all he knew he was dropping to his death! ”

“ Then, on sheer impulse, instigated by the devil within her, yet without the faintest thought of disloyalty, she had flirted riotously with the new curate, and Nibbetts had gone away to war in South Africa in a pet, without so much as a word of farewell.
In an incredibly short time had come the tidings of his death, and what with her crushing sense of irreparable loss and her ravening conscience all the world changed its colors from gay to dun. ”

“ Every man, without exception, was sorry—deeply sorry; and every woman, without exception, wasn't. Nina's beauty had always been a hard thing to combat.
For the duchess's kiss she lifted her veil the least bit and presented the extreme point of her chin. The duchess, observing closely, noted that it was unmarred, and concluded that it was the only portion of her great-niece's face that was. ”

“ Yet I know there's not a scintilla of truth in any one of them."
"I heard something of that sort at Simla," said Andrews, frowning.
"You can hear it anywhere. Whenever conversation flags in Anglo-India some ass or knave will introduce the Darlings, and rehearse the latest invention of the prolific and never-failing scandal-makers."
"But he's cruel to her, isn't he?"
"He's only cruel to himself," answered Dinghal. "He's killing his body and soul with strong drink, and he's risking his temporal and eternal future as an officer in his majesty's service and as a Christian gentleman. ”

“ The footman was bringing fresh tea.
"I'm late," said Sir George, coming around to the fire. "Hello, Nibbetts!"
Then he nodded generally to the others. "I got shot in the back," he went on jovially, "and they had to undress me. And then I had to dress again, of course."
"Who shot you?" asked Lady Bellingdown, with the well-bred interest of a well-bred hostess. "Were you badly shot?"
When gentlemen go shooting, to be shot is so common that no one very much minds. Even Sir George's wife, loving him as she did, managed to preserve a stoical silence. ”

“ She needed no word to confirm the dire thing told her by the duke. Poor Andrews seemed weighed down by the burden of his tidings. His expression was as grim and dour as the day.
"But do they know who he is?" It was her first question, and it relieved him of the bald announcement he had dreaded.
"They don't," he answered quickly, glad to get the first plunge over. "They haven't the faintest notion, apparently. I asked particularly."
"Poor Nibbetts," Nina sighed. "He doesn't look the typical nobleman. Yet when he was a young man there wasn't a smarter in all London." ”

“ As Carleigh emerged from the breakfast-room, where he and his aunt were among the last, Lady Bellingdown slipped her arm through his, saying:
"Well, my dear boy, we've done you good, haven't we?"
He glanced back over his shoulder to indicate whom he had in mind—for Nina had come down but a minute before—last of all—and said, smiling: "She's a wonder."
"Isn't she? Doesn't she say the most startling things? She's a bomb made animate."
"One is always wondering what will come next," he declared. ”

“ At the same instant Kneedrock, sick at the sight, turned away to meet the khitmatgar's sinister gaze. Already it seemed the room was swarming with pressing, curious, excited native servants.
Nina had vanished, led away by her ayah. Later he learned that the gun found by Jowar had been examined. Both barrels were empty; but there was only one discharged shell.
The motor-car, waiting at the porch to take him to his train, was speeded for surgeons and medical men, as if, under the circumstances, there could be one faint ray of hope even. ”

“ At the time of this conversation Andrews had not seen Darling. He met him a night or two later at the Umballa Club, and a strange emotional mix-up resulted. The young man's sentimental side was oddly stirred. Darling appealed not only to his sympathy, but to his admiration.
It was true that he had been prepared for something of this kind by Dinghal; but he never suspected that he could entertain more than a sort of passive pity for Nina's husband. He had an innate dislike for weak men, physically and morally. ”

“ You've another life to live."
"I feel a hundred sometimes," she replied, "and I know my heart is quite that."
"You love the child—Nibbetts's child?"
"Because he lives again in her. It's a shadowy love, you see. I shall never love another man."
"They say you'll marry this Andrews chap when the year is up." ”

“ Mistakes are so easy, you know. He could shoot at the bronze cobra again, for instance, and aim a little high."
And at that she faced him.
"You never used to be so bitter," she said. "You can't think what you're saying."
"I've fed on bitterness. I always think the worst, and I'm usually justified. I can't see any way to undo your tangle except by murder!"
Nina shivered, and Kneedrock saw it; but she said nothing.
"I'm glad you didn't pretend to be shocked," he told her. "Only as a rule you're not very keen on quick deaths. You prefer the cat-and-mouse process. ”

“ But then the world knew nothing of Nina Darling's secret—which made all the difference.
For right judgment a few facts will not serve. Unless we have them all we are likely to fall into error. To argue from effect back to cause is a very risky undertaking. And that was what most people did in Nina Darling's case.
Young Gerald Andrews, of the civil service, the most recent victim, whom she had had in leading strings ever since he came to Simla, fancied her from the very first the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. ”