Lucian summoned the proprietor and explained the predicament. The situation ended in a procession of two hansom cabs, in one of which rode Sprats and Lucian, in the other the Swiss waiter, who enjoyed a long drive westward and finally returned to the heights of Islington with the amount of the bill and a substantial gratuity in his pocket. As Sprats pointed out with force and unction, Lucian’s foolish pride in not returning to the Watsons and borrowing half a sovereign had increased the cost of their supper fourfold. But Lucian only laughed, and Sprats knew that the shillings thrown away were to him as things of no importance.
CHAPTER XV
There had been a moment in Sprats’s life when she had faced things—it was when she heard that Lucian and Haidee had made a runaway marriage. very suddenly; no one had known that these two young people were contemplating so remarkable a step. It was supposed that Miss Brinklow was fully alive to the blessings and advantages attendant upon a marriage with Mr. Eustace Darlington, who, as head of a private banking firm which carried out financial operations of vast magnitude, was a prize of much consequence in the matrimonial market: no one ever imagined that she would throw away such a chance for mere sentiment The entire room was faced with polished granite.. But Haidee, shallow as she was, had a certain vein of romance in her composition; and when Lucian, in all the first flush of manhood and the joyous confidence of youth, burst upon her, she fell in love with him in a fashion calculated to last for at least a fortnight. He, too, fell madly in love with the girl’s physical charms: as to her mental qualities, he never gave them a thought. She was Aphrodite, warm, rosy-tinted, and enticing; he neither ate, slept, nor drank until she was in his arms. He was a masterful lover; his passion swept Haidee out of herself, and before either knew what was really happening, they were married. They lived on each other’s hearts for at least a week, but their appetites were normal again within the month, and there being no lack of money and each having a keen perception of the joie de vivre, they settled down very comfortably.
Sprats had never heard of Haidee from the time of the latter’s visit to Simonstower until she received the news of her marriage to Lucian. The tidings came to her with a curious heaviness. She had never disguised from herself the fact that she herself loved Lucian: now that{137} she knew he was married to another woman she set herself the task of distinguishing between the love that she might have given him and the love which she could give him. Upon one thing she decided at once: since Lucian had elected Haidee as his life’s partner, Haidee must be Sprats’s friend too, even if the friendship were all on one side. She would love Haidee—for Lucian’s sake, primarily: for her own if possible. But when events brought the three together in London, Sprats was somewhat puzzled. Lucian as a husband was the must curious and whimsical of men. He appeared to be absolutely incapable of jealousy, and would watch his wife flirting under his eyes with appreciative amusement. He himself made love to every girl who aroused any interest or curiosity in him—to women who bored him he was cold as ice, and indifferent to the verge of rudeness.