The Wheel of Love. Anthony Hope

the matter now?” inquired the General.

      “Why, I’ve just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I say, don’t you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing.”

      The General laughed.

      “Well,” said Sir Roger, “he oughtn’t to have been such a fool as to tell me. He knows I never remember to keep things dark. It’s not my fault.”

      A girl came out of the hotel and strolled up to where the group was. She was dark, slight, and rather below middle height; her complexion at this moment was a trifle sallow and her eyes listless, but it seemed rather as though she had dressed her face into a tragic cast, the set of the features being naturally mirthful. She acknowledged the men’s salutations and sat down with a sigh.

      “Not on to-day?” asked Sir Roger, waving his cigar toward the lawn-tennis courts.

      “No,” said Miss Bellairs.

      “Are you seedy, Dolly?” inquired the General.

      “No,” said Miss Bellairs.

      Mr. Laing fixed his eye-glass and surveyed the young lady.

      “Are you taking any?” said he, indicating the jug.

      “I don’t see any fun in vulgarity,” observed Miss Bellairs.

      The General smiled. Sir Roger’s lips assumed the shape for a whistle.

      “That’s a nasty one for me,” said Laing.

      “Ah, here you are, Roger,” exclaimed a fresh clear voice from behind the chairs. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We’ve seen everything—Mr. Ellerton was most kind—and I do so want to tell you my impressions.”

      The new-comer was Lady Deane, a tall young woman, plainly dressed in a serviceable cloth walking-gown. By her side stood Charlie Ellerton in a flannel suit of pronounced striping; he wore a little yellow mustache, had blue eyes and curly hair, and his face was tanned a wholesome ruddy-brown. He looked very melancholy.

      “Letters from Hell,” murmured Sir Roger.

      “But I was so distressed,” continued his wife. “Mr. Ellerton would gamble, and he lost ever so much money.”

      “A fellow must amuse himself,” remarked Charlie gloomily, and with apparent unconsciousness he took a glass from Laing and drained it.

      “Gambling and drink—what does that mean?” asked Sir Roger.

      “Shut up, Deane,” said Charlie.

      Miss Bellairs rose suddenly and walked away. Her movement expressed impatience with her surroundings. After a moment Charlie Ellerton slowly sauntered after her. She sat down on a garden-seat some way off. Charlie placed himself at the opposite end. A long pause ensued.

      “I’m afraid I’m precious poor company,” said Charlie.

      “I didn’t want you to be company at all,” answered Miss Bellairs, and she sloped her parasol until it obstructed his view of her face.

      “I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t stand the sort of rot Deane and Laing are talking.”

      “Can’t you? Neither can I.”

      “They never seem to be serious about anything, you know,” and Charlie sighed deeply, and for three minutes there was silence.

      “Do you know Scotland at all?” asked Charlie at last.

      “Only a little.”

      “There last year?”

      “No, I was in Switzerland.”

      “Oh.”

      “Do you know Interlaken?”

      “No.”

      “Oh.”

      “May I have a cigarette?”

      “Of course, if you like.”

      Charlie lit his cigarette and smoked silently for a minute or two.

      “I call this a beastly place,” said he.

      “Yes, horrid,” she answered, and the force of sympathy made her move the parasol and turn her face towards her companion. “But I thought,” she continued, “you came here every spring?”

      “Oh, I don’t mind the place so much. It’s the people.”

      “Yes, isn’t it? I know what you mean.”

      “You can’t make a joke of everything, can you?”

      “Indeed no,” sighed Dora.

      Charlie looked at his cigarette, and, his eyes carefully fixed on it, said in a timid tone:

      “What’s the point, for instance, of talking as if love was all bosh?”

      Dora’s parasol swept down again swiftly, but Charlie was still looking at the cigarette and he did not notice its descent, nor could he see that Miss Bellairs’s cheek was no longer sallow.

      “It’s such cheap rot,” he continued, “and when a fellow’s—I say, Miss Bellairs, I’m not boring you?”

      The parasol wavered and finally moved.

      “No,” said Miss Bellairs.

      “I don’t know whether you—no, I mustn’t say that; but I know what it is to be in love, Miss Bellairs; but what’s the good of talking about it? Everybody laughs.”

      Miss Bellairs put down her parasol.

      “I shouldn’t laugh,” she said softly. “It’s horrid to laugh at people when they’re in trouble,” and her eyes were very sympathetic.

      “You are kind. I don’t mind talking about it to you. You know I’m not the sort of fellow who falls in love with every girl he meets; so of course it’s worse when I do.”

      “Was it just lately?” murmured Dora.

      “Last summer.”

      “Ah! And—and didn’t she——?”

      “Oh, I don’t know. Yes, hang it, I believe she did. She was perfectly straight, Miss Bellairs. I don’t say a word against her. She-I think she didn’t know her own feelings until—until I spoke, you know—and then——”

      “Do go on, if—if it doesn’t——”

      “Why, then, the poor girl cried and said it couldn’t be because she—she was engaged to another fellow; and she sent me away.”

      Miss Bellairs was listening attentively.

      “And,” continued Charlie, “she wrote and said it must be good-by and—and——”

      “And you think she——?”

      “She told me so,” whispered Charlie. “She said she couldn’t part without telling me. Oh, I say, Miss Bellairs, isn’t it all damnable? I beg your pardon.”

      Dora was tracing little figures on the gravel with her parasol.

      “Now what would you do?” cried Charlie. “She loves me, I know she does, and she’s going to marry this other fellow because she promised him first. I don’t suppose she knew what love was then.”

      “Oh, I’m sure she didn’t,” exclaimed Dora earnestly.

      “You can’t blame her, you know. And it’s absurd to—to—to—not to—well, to marry a fellow you don’t care for when you care for another fellow, you know!”

      “Yes.”

      “Of course you can hardly imagine yourself in that position, but suppose