Chapter XXII
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THE LAST
In the end it was neither his Grace nor I who broke the spell. Mr. Waring took the wisp of straw from his teeth, and says:
"Tiverton, my dear fellow, you amuse me."
"I rather amuse myself," says I, a little wearily. "We are come to the last act in this somewhat pitiful poor-hearted sort of farce, and I suppose we must continue furiously to laugh until the curtain is rung down."
"Of course, my dear fellow, of course," says Waring. "But before we do so, would it not be as well if we had a few brief explanations in the true stage manner? In the first place, may I ask why you so persistently shun the society of the one person who is the most likely to contribute something towards setting you right in the eyes of the world?"
"I confess I do not understand you," says I.
"Then I am sorry for it," says my rival, with a strange frank smile. "For, after all, the person I refer to is myself."
"You?" says I.
The incredulity in my voice caused the man to open his snuff-box very deliberately, and to offer its contents to me.
"Perhaps, after all," says he, "there is no particular reason why you should take my meaning. For you have doubtless forgotten that I am the only person now alive who was privileged to witness a certain incident. But that of course may be a fact you may wish to forget; or the incident in question may be too trifling for your recollection. In any case I ask your pardon if I weary you."
"On the contrary," says I coldly, "you interest me vastly."
"The topic is one I should crave your pardon for mentioning," says the other, with his baffling air; "were not your interest so greatly at stake. I presume you are not unacquainted with the construction the world hath already put upon this matter?"
"I am not," says I curtly.
"Then I hope, my dear fellow," says Waring, "you will accept a service, however slight, at my hands. My testimony may be of some little value to you before a jury of your peers."
My rival held out his hand with a jovial grace. I stood looking at it, groping, with the wine still in my brain. For the candour sparkling in the fellow's eyes was a thing I had never seen in that place before; the winning earnestness of it was so hard to realize that it overwhelmed me. The bitter truth suddenly poured into my heart like a torrent.
"My God," says I, "all this time I have been weighing your character by the measure of my own. Is it not ever the fate of the mean and the little to do so? You have been the phantom, from whom we have fled. The phantom, however, was not in a chaise and pair, but in our own hearts!"
"The old fault, Tiverton, I protest," says Waring. "What a trite, pragmatical, moralizing fellow it is! I do hope you will not, like your damned old ancestor, lay a burden on an unprovoking posterity and write a book."
"Ecod, I will," says I, "one day. I will take a revenge of my mean mind by exhibiting it naked to the sneers of the world. But in the meantime, Waring, I must show you in your true colours to my little Cynthia. Even her feminine penetration had not divined them."
It was a light word, lightly uttered; and I cursed myself. The man was as pale as his neckcloth, and the old mocking whimsicality—alas! I had nearly writ ugliness—was in his eyes. There was but an instant in which this was to be observed, however, for with shaking fingers he opened his snuff-box, and regained possession of himself.
I offered him my hand.
"Waring," says I, "we cannot ever be friends. You will continue to loathe me as you would a thief; and I on my part shall continue to hate you for the consummate hypocrite and charlatan you are. But, curse my jacket, sir! as a dilettante in the arts, as a lover of the beautiful, I shall reverence for ever your singularly noble character."
"Then I am repaid," says this cynical, candid devil. "'Tis the reward I had looked for, my good Tiverton, that you, robber and ruffian as you are, whose foremost desire will ever be to put an inch of steel in my heart, should yet be condemned to lay your neck in the dust while Humphrey Waring walks upon it. I do not think I could desire a prettier revenge. 'Tis a dear pretty chit, though."
Involuntarily his eyes wandered across the room to Cynthia. Mine followed them, in spite of myself, jealously. It was then I saw that a strange thing had happened. Father and daughter were seated together, tears streaming down their faces, locked in one another's arms.
"Your victory is completer than I had supposed," says my rival coolly.
At the moment I did not perceive the full force of his meaning. An instant later, however, I had that felicity. The old man in a broken voice called me over to him. The tears still streamed down his cheeks.
"I am a foolish, fond old man," says his Grace. "Curse it all, was there ever such a damned, snuffling, weak old fool as I am! Ecod, I must be very old. How old am I, Humphrey?"
"Eighty-two in December, Duke."
"Curse me, so I am," says his Grace. "If I hadn't been so old—if I had been eighty now, if I had been eighty—I would 'a broken a stick across your shoulders, miss, and I would 'a peppered your hide with lead, young what's-your-name. But as I'm so old, 'od's lud! I suppose I must be benevolent. Miss says she loves you, young man—don't you, my pretty pet?—And she says you love her, so I suppose you had better marry her. Humphrey won't mind; will you, Humphrey? You be an old bachelor, and don't be plagued with daughters. But I forget the fellow's name; what's his name, Humphrey?"
"Tiverton," says Humphrey.
"Of course," says the Duke. "Knew your father, young man; thin man with a bald head and no chin; used to stutter when he got excited. Knew your grandfather too. Of course I knew your grandfather, he, he, he! Was at Eton with him. Great man, your grandfather; writ a pamphlet or something. Dirty little varlet at Eton; had red hair. What is the amount of your debts, young man? I suppose I must pay 'em, though why I don't know. But we'll go into it to-morrow, young Tiverton. I must go to bed. Give me your shoulder, Humphrey."
Here is the end of my prosaic history. The Duke's credit and influence, and Mr. Waring's testimony averted those calamities that had been such a nightmare to us. We also had the banns cried; and were married all over again by Parson Scriven, lest any irregularities in regard to the union of Jane Smith and John Jones, or Jane Jones and John Smith, should recoil on their heirs. Mr. Waring lives on his property in Ireland, troubles Saint James's little, and Devonshire less. Mr. Sadler, as I have said, came to be hanged. No man of the world was more courteous and polite than he; no man was more genial; yet I should be the last to deny that his fate was richly merited. Even in the very moment of our reconciliation on that eventful night, he stole away. A pair of cameos of great price went with him, I grieve to say. It may, of course, have been his boast that he too was a lover of the beautiful.
THE END