The Keepers of the People

740At half-past nine she said that she must be going home lest she should be missed, and punished further for leaving the house. He brought her back himself, and she slipped in unnoticed; for Miss Blayne was still writing letters for Lady Hammersmith. She told the butler that a gentleman was coming to tea with her, and that he was to be brought up to her room; and ordered the cook to be careful to send up with it the best cakes she could procure. When Ralph Falcon came she entertained him, talked to him, and was far brighter than she had been in the morning, full of the thought of escaping from her mother. On the next day he took her out to dine with him; and, leaving the disposal of the evening to her, they dined at the Savoy, went to the Empire, and supped at the Cafe Royal, as she had been wont to do with Lord Lisdor. She did not, indeed, find Ralph Falcon as pleasant a companion: he was too grave: but the evening was a grateful change from the dulness that had gone before it.

741From that day he devoted much of the time that he should have devoted to Miss Freshington, to her; and together they enjoyed amusing London. Then Lady Hammersmith heard of their supping together at the Savoy; and in a flurry of angry astonishment, forbade Althea his society. Althea explained that forbidding was no prerogative of a disowned parent; Lady Hammersmith, seeing that Ralph Falcon’s marriage was at hand, and that it must break off the friendship between them, was content to threaten her with a further curtailment of her liberty, and the utter loss of the society of Lord and Lady Lisdor. But now Althea had her hope; Ralph Falcon had assured her that he was earnest in his purpose to take her to a finer life; and she laughed at her mother. On their last evening together they went to the Opera to hear the “Valkyre,” to satisfy Althea’s desire to know Wagner, of whom she had heard many people talk. The opera interested her but little; she drew her pleasure from watching Ralph Falcon; for now and again the fine, barbaric passions, expressed with so little marring sentimentality by that music, stirred him from his calm. He kindled to the Spring music, and the love music; the sword music, and the ride of the Valkyries bared his teeth; while the fire music at the end brought him out of the opera-house with softened eyes. The cool air of the night stirred in him again the fierceness awakened by the more barbaric music, and he said, “I’m tired of this sickly country, tired! I want to be back where the world is wider!” He swept his arm round through the air. “In a land where the men are not women, and there are things to be done! Are you coming, Althea?”