第283章

Bray and his daughter were sitting there alone. It was nearly three weeks since he had seen her last, but there was a change in the lovely girl before him which told Nicholas, in startling terms, how much mental suffering had been compressed into that short time. There are no words which can express, nothing with which can be compared, the perfect pallor, the clear transparent whiteness, of the beautiful face which turned towards him when he entered. Her hair was a rich deep brown, but shading that face, and straying upon a neck that rivalled it in whiteness, it seemed by the strong contrast raven black. Something of wildness and restlessness there was in the dark eye, but there was the same patient look, the same expression of gentle mournfulness which he well remembered, and no trace of a single tear. Most beautiful--more beautiful, perhaps, than ever--there was something in her face which quite unmanned him, and appeared far more touching than the wildest agony of grief It was not merely calm and composed, but fixed and rigid, as though the violent effort which had summoned that composure beneath her father's eye, while it mastered all other thoughts, had prevented even the momentary expression they had communicated to the features from subsiding, and had fastened it there, as an evidence of its triumph.

The father sat opposite to her--not looking directly in her face, but glancing at her, as he talked with a gay air which ill disguised the anxiety of his thoughts. The drawing materials were not on their accustomed table, nor were any of the other tokens of her usual occupations to be seen. The little vases which Nicholas had always seen filled with fresh flowers were empty, or supplied only with a few withered stalks and leaves. The bird was silent. The cloth that covered his cage at night was not removed. His mistress had forgotten him.

There are times when, the mind being painfully alive to receive impressions, a great deal may be noted at a glance. This was one, for Nicholas had but glanced round him when he was recognised by Mr Bray, who said impatiently.

`Now, sir, what do you want? Name your errand here, quickly, if you please, for my daughter and I are busily engaged with other and more important matters than those you come about. Come, sir, address yourself to your business at once.'

Nicholas could very well discern that the irritability and impatience of this speech were assumed, and that Bray, in his heart, was rejoiced at any interruption which promised to engage the attention of his daughter.

He bent his eyes involuntarily upon the father as he spoke, and marked his uneasiness; for he coloured and turned his head away.

The device, however, so far as it was a device for causing Madeline to interfere, was successful. She rose, and advancing towards Nicholas paused half-way, and stretched out her hand as expecting a letter.

`Madeline,' said her father impatiently, `my love, what are you doing?'

`Miss Bray expects an enclosure perhaps,' said Nicholas, speaking very distinctly, and with an emphasis she could scarcely misunderstand. `My employer is absent from England, or I should have brought a letter with me. I hope she will give me time--a little time--I ask a very little time.'

`If that is all you come about, sir,' said Mr Bray, `you may make yourself easy on that head. Madeline, my dear, I didn't know this person was in your debt?'

`A--a trifle, I believe,' returned Madeline, faintly.

`I suppose you think now,' said Bray, wheeling his chair round and confronting Nicholas, `that, but for such pitiful sums as you bring here, because my daughter has chosen to employ her time as she has, we should starve?'

`I have not thought about it,' returned Nicholas.

`You have not thought about it!' sneered the invalid. `You know you have thought about it, and have thought that, and think so every time you come here. Do you suppose, young man, that I don't know what little purse-proud tradesmen are, when, through some fortunate circumstances, they get the upper hand for a brief day--or think they get the upper hand--of a gentleman?'

`My business,' said Nicholas respectfully, `is with a lady.'

`With a gentleman's daughter, sir,' returned the sick man, `and the pettifogging spirit is the same. But perhaps you bring orders eh?

Have you any fresh orders for my daughter, sir?'

Nicholas understood the tone of triumph in which this interrogatory was put; but remembering the necessity of supporting his assumed character, produced a scrap of paper purporting to contain a list of some subjects for drawings which his employer desired to have executed; and with which he had prepared himself in case of any such contingency.

`Oh!' said Mr Bray. `These are the orders, are they?'

`Since you insist upon the term, sir--yes,' replied Nicholas.

`Then you may tell your master,' said Bray, tossing the paper back again, with an exulting smile, `that my daughter--Miss Madeline Bray--condescends to employ herself no longer in such labours as these; that she is not at his beck and call, as he supposes her to be; that we don't live upon his money, as he flatters himself we do; that he may give whatever he owes us, to the first beggar that passes his shop, or add it to his own profits next time he calculates them; and that he may go to the devil for me. That's my acknowledgment of his orders, sir!'

`And this is the independence of a man who sells his daughter as he has sold that weeping girl!' thought Nicholas.

The father was too much absorbed with his own exultation to mark the look of scorn which, for an instant, Nicholas could not have suppressed had he been upon the rack. `There,' he continued, after a short silence, `you have your message and can retire--unless you have any further--ha!--any further orders.'