Sons of fire, Vol. II.

FATE INTERVENES.

The return of Geoffrey Wornock made no essential difference in the lives of the lovers. Suzette continued her organ practice; Allan continued his visits to the Manor House; and Suzette and Allan were much oftener Mrs. Wornock's companions than her son, whose restless temper did not allow of his remaining long in any one place, and for whom monotony of any kind was intolerable.

He stayed in London for a week buying horses, and having brought home a string of four, every one supposed to be matchless, he began hunting with the vigour of a man whose appetite for that British sport had only been sharpened by paper-chases and polo in the tropics. Not content with the South Sarum, he travelled up and down the line, hunted with the Vine from Basingstoke, and with the H. H. from Winchester. He was up and away in the grey November mornings after a seven-o'clock breakfast, and seldom home in time for an eight-o'clock dinner.

On the days when there was no hunting to be had, he flung himself into the delights of the music-room with all the ardour of a musical fanatic, and Allan and Suzette were content to listen in meek astonishment to performances which were far above the drawing-room amateur, although marked by certain imperfections and carelessnesses which seemed inevitable in a player whose ardour was too fitful for the drudgery of daily practice.

These musical days were the bright spots in Mrs. Wornock's existence, the chief bond of union between mother and son; as if music were the only spell which could hold this volatile spirit within the circle of domestic love.

"I like my mother to accompany me," said Geoffrey. "I have played with some prodigious swells, but not one of them has had her sympathetic touch, her instantaneous comprehension of my spontaneities. They expected me to be faultily faultless, instead of which I play de Beriot as Chopin used to play Chopin, indulging every caprice as to time."

Geoffrey was occasionally present when one of the organ lessons was in progress. He was interested, but not so much so as to sit still and listen. He carried Allan off to the billiard-room, or the stable, before the lesson was half over.

"What a happy little family we are," he said laughingly one day, as he and Allan were strolling stablewards. "My mother is almost as fond of your fiancée as if she were her daughter."

"Your mother is a very amiable woman, as well as a gifted woman."

"Gifted? yes, that's the word. She is all enthusiasm. There have been no spiritualists or supernatural people here lately, I suppose?"

"No."

"I'm glad of that. My poor mother loses her head when that kind of people are in the way. She is ready to believe in their nonsense. She wants to believe. She wants to see visions and dream dreams. She has secluded herself from the world of the living, and she would give half her fortune if she could bring the dead into her drawing-room. Poor dear mother! How many weary hours she has spent waiting for materializations that have never materialized! I have never been able to convince her that all her spiritualistic friends are pretenders and comedians. She tells me she knows that some are charlatans; but she believes that their theories are based upon eternal truths. She rebukes my scepticism with an appeal to the Witch of Endor. I dare not shock her by confessing that I have my doubts even about the Witch of Endor."

He had a way of making light of his mother's fancies and eccentricities which had in its gaiety no touch of disrespect. Gaiety was the chief characteristic of his temperament, as it was with Suzette. He brought a new element of mirthfulness into the life at Discombe Manor; but with this happy temperament there was the drawback of an eager desire for change and movement which disturbed the atmosphere of a house whose chief charm to Allan's mind had been its sober quiet, its atmosphere of old-world peace.

Allan studied this young man's character closely, studied him and thought of him much more than he wanted to think of him, and vainly struggled against an uneasy feeling that in every superiority of this new acquaintance there lurked a danger to his own happiness.

"He is handsomer than I am," mused Allan, in one of his despondent moods. "He has a gayer temper--Suzette's own temper--which sees all things in the happiest light. I sit and watch them, listen to them, and feel myself worlds away from them both; and yet if she were free to-morrow he could never love her as I love her. There, at least, I am the superior. He has no such power of concentration as I have. To his frivolous nature no woman could ever be all in all."

These despondent moods were luckily not of long duration. On Suzette's part there had not been the faintest sign of wavering; and Allan felt ashamed of the jealous fears which fell ever and anon like a black cloud across the sunny prospect of his life. However valiantly he might struggle against that lurking jealousy, there were occasions upon which he could not master it, and his darkest hours were those during which he sat in the music-room at Discombe, and heard Suzette and Geoffrey playing concertante duets for violin and piano. It seemed to him as the violinist bent over the pretty dark head, to turn a leaf, or to explain a passage in the piano score, that for these two there was a language which he knew not, a language in which mind spoke to mind, and perhaps heart to heart. Who could keep the heart altogether out of the question when that most eloquent of all languages was making its impassioned appeal? Every long-drawn legato chord upon the Strad, every delicate diminuendo of the sighing strings, the tremulous bow so lightly held in the long lissom fingers, sounded like an avowal.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," sobbed the violin; "how can you care for that dumb brute yonder, while I am telling my love in heavenliest sounds, in strains that thrill along every nerve, and tremble at the door of your heart? How can you care for that dumb dog, or care how you hurt him by your inconstancy?"

Possessed by these evil fancies, Allan started up from his seat in a remote window, and began to pace the room in the midst of a de Beriot sonata, to which Suzette had been promoted after a good deal of practice in less brilliant music.

"What's the matter, old fellow?" asked Geoffrey, noting that impatient promenade; "was I out of tune?"

"No, you were only too much in tune."

"How do you mean? I don't understand----"

"Is it likely you can understand me--or I you?" cried Allan, impetuously. "You have a language which I have not, a sense which is lacking in me. You and Suzette are in a paradise whose gate I can't open. Don't think me an envious, churlish kind of fellow, if I sometimes grudge you your happiness."

"But, my dear Allan, you are fond of music--you like listening----"

"No, I don't. I have had too much listening, too much of being out of it. Put on your hat, Suzette, and come for a walk. I am tired to death of your de Beriot."

Mrs. Wornock was sitting a little way from the piano, reading. She looked up wonderingly at this outburst. Never before had Allan been guilty of such rough speech in her presence. Never before had he spoken with such rude authority to Suzette.

"If our music has not the good fortune to please you, I would suggest that there are several rooms in this house where you would not hear it," said Geoffrey, laying down his fiddle.

All the brightness had faded from his countenance, leaving it very pale. Suzette looked from one to the other with an expression of piteous distress. The two young men stood looking at each other, Allan flushed and fiery, Geoffrey's pallid face fixed and stern, with an anger which was stronger than the occasion warranted. They were sufficiently alike to make any ill-will between them seem like a brother's quarrel.

"You are very good, but I would rather be out-of-doors. Are you coming, Suzette?"

"Not till I have finished the sonata," she answered quietly, with a look which reproved his rudeness, and then began to play.

Geoffrey took up his fiddle, and the performance was resumed as if nothing had happened.

Mrs. Wornock rose and went to Allan.

"Will you come for a stroll with me, Allan?" she asked, taking up the warm Indian shawl which lay on a chair near the window. "It is not too cold for the garden."

He could not refuse such an invitation as this, though it tortured him to leave those two alone at the piano. He opened the window, wrapped Mrs. Wornock in her shawl, and followed her to the lawn.

"Allan, why were you angry just now?" she asked.

"Why? Perhaps I had better tell you the truth. I am miserable when I see the woman I love interested and enthralled by an art in which your son is a master--and of which I know hardly the A, B, C. I ask myself if she can care for a creature so inferior as I am--if she can fail to perceive his superiority."

"Jealous, Allan! Oh, I am so sorry. It was I who proposed that they should play duets. It was not Geoffrey's idea. I thought it would encourage Suzette to go on practising. You don't know the delight a pianist feels in accompanying a violin----"

"I think I can imagine it. Suzette takes very kindly to the concertante practice."

"She has improved so much since I first knew her. She has such a talent for music. It never occurred to me that you could object."

"It never occurred to you that I could be a jealous fool. You might just as well say that, for no doubt you think it."

"Yes, I think you are foolish to be jealous. Suzette is as true as steel; and I don't believe Geoffrey has the slightest inclination to fall in love with her."