Mrs. Bollington-Watts' shrill voice once more broke the silence, which,
although it was a matter of seconds only, was not without a certain
peculiar dramatic quality.
"Say, what's wrong with you, Freddy? You don't think I'm a ghost, do
you? Can't you come down and talk?"
The spell, whatever it may have been, had passed. The young man lifted
his hat and leaned over the side of the coach.
"I won't get down just now, Amy," he said. "Tell me where you are and
I'll come and see you. How's Richard?"
Maraton, obeying a gesture from Lady Elisabeth, moved away with her,
leaving Mrs. Bollington-Watts absorbed in a flood of family questions
and answers.
"Come back with me now, won't you?" she asked, a little abruptly. "My
uncle is restless and unwell this afternoon, and it will perhaps relieve
him to have your decision."
"What about Mrs. Bollington-Watts?"
Lady Elisabeth glanced at him for a moment. Her eyebrows were slightly
lifted.
"If you can bear to lose her, I'm sure I can. She is really rather a
dear person but she is very intense. She will meet a crowd of people
she knows, directly, and quite forget that we have slipped away. Shall
we go down Birdcage Walk, or if you are in a hurry, perhaps you would
prefer a taxi?"
He shook his head.
"I prefer to walk."
He did not at first prove a very entertaining companion. They proceeded
for some distance almost in silence.
"If I were a curious person," Lady Elisabeth remarked, "I should
certainly be puzzling my brain as to what there could have been about
that very frivolous young man to call such an expression into your face.
And how terrified he was to see you!"
Maraton smiled grimly.
"You have observation, I perceive, Lady Elisabeth."
"Powers of observation but no curiosity, thank goodness," Lady Elisabeth
declared. "Perhaps that is just as well, for I can see that you are
going to turn out to be a very mysterious person."
"In some respects I believe that I am," he assented equably. "My
peculiar beliefs are responsible for a good deal, you see--and certain
circumstances. . . . But tell me--we have both agreed to be
frank--why have you changed your attitude towards me so completely? I
scarcely dared to hope even for your recognition this morning."
She was suddenly thoughtful.
"That was the very question I was asking myself when we crossed the
street just now," she remarked, with a faint smile.
Maraton was conscious of a curious and undefined sense of pleasure in
her words. In the act of crossing he had held her arm for a few
moments, and though her assent to his physical guidance had been purely
negative, there was yet something about it which had given him a vague
pleasure. Instinctively he knew that she was of the order of women to
whom the merest touch from a man whom they disliked would have been
torture.
"I think," she went on, "that it is because I am trying to adopt my
uncle's point of view towards you."
"And what is your uncle's point of view?"
"He believes you," she declared, "to be a very dangerous person, a rabid
enthusiast with brains and also stability--the most difficult order of
person in the world to deal with."
"Anything else?"
"He believes you," she continued, "to be harmless enough at a wholesome
period of our country's history. Just now, he told me yesterday, that
he considered it was within your power to bring something very much like
ruin upon the country."
Maraton was silent. He felt singularly indisposed for argument. Every
condition of life just then seemed too pleasant. They were walking in
the shade, and a soft west wind was rustling in the trees above their
heads.
"There are, after all," she said, "so many happy people in the world.
Is it worth while to drag down the pillars, to bring so much misery into
the world for the sake of a dream?"
"I am no dreamer," he insisted quietly. "It is possible to make
absolute laws for the future with the same precision as one can extract
examples from the history of the past."
"But human nature," she objected, "is always a shifting quality."
"Only in detail. The heart and lungs of it are the same in all ages."
They crossed the road and turned into St. James's Park. He paused for
a moment to look at the front of Buckingham Palace.
"A hateful sight to you, of course," she murmured.
"Not in the least," he assured her. "On the contrary, I think that the
actual government of this country is wonderful. I suppose my creed of
life would command a halter from any one who heard it, but I raise my
hat always to your King."
"It is going to take me ages," she sighed, "to understand you."
"I will supply you with the necessary signposts," he promised. "Perhaps
you will find then that the task will become almost too easy. For me I
am afraid it will prove too short."
She turned her head and looked at him curiously. There was something
provocative in the curl of her lips and in her monosyllabic question.
"Why?"
"Because when you have arrived at a complete understanding," he
declared, "I fear we shall have reached the parting of our ways."
She looked steadfastly ahead.
"Wouldn't that rather rest with you?" she asked.
They passed a flower-barrow wonderfully laden, and she half stopped with
a little exclamation.
"Oh, I must have some of those white roses!" she begged. "They fit in
at this moment with one of my only superstitions."
He bought her a great handful. She held them in both hands and gave him
her parasol to carry.
"Mine is an inherited superstition, so I will not be ashamed of it," she
told him. "We have always believed that white roses bring happiness,
especially if they come accidentally at a critical moment."
He glanced behind at the retreating figure of the flower woman.
"If happiness is so easily purchased," he said, "what a pity it is that
I did not buy the barrowful!"
"It isn't a matter of quantity at all," she assured him. "One blossom
would have been enough and you were really frightfully extravagant."
She drifted into silence. They were walking eastwards now, and before
them was the great yellow haze which hung over the sun-enveloped city, a
haze which stretched across the whole arc of the heavens, and underneath
which were toiling the millions to whom his life was consecrated. For a
moment the grim inappropriateness of these hours struck him with a pang
of remorse. He felt almost like a traitor to be walking with this slim,
beautiful girl whose face was hidden from him now in the mass of white
blossoms. And then his sense of proportion came to the rescue. He knew
that he had but one desire--to work out his ends by the most effective
means. It did not even disturb him to reflect that for the first time
for many years he had found pleasure in what was merely an interlude.
"We turn here," she directed. "You see, we are close to home now. My
uncle will be so glad to see you, Mr. Maraton, and I cannot tell you
how delighted I am that you are coming to Lyndwood."
"I only hope," he said a little gravely, "that your uncle will not
expect too much from my coming. It seems churlish to refuse, and even
though our views are as far apart as the poles, I know that your uncle
means well."
She smiled at him delightfully.
"I refuse to be depressed even by your solemn looks," she declared. "It
is my twenty-fourth birthday to-day and I am still young enough to cling
to my optimism."
"Your birthday," he remarked. "I should have brought you an offering."
She held up the roses.
"Nothing in the world," she assured him softly, "could have given me
more pleasure than these. Now I am going to take you first into a
little den where you will not be disturbed, and then fetch my uncle,"
she added, as they passed into the house. "I shall pray for your mutual
conversion. You won't mind a very feminine room, will you? Just now
there are certain to be callers at any moment, and my uncle's rooms are
liable to all manner of intrusions."
She threw open the door and ushered him into what seemed indeed to be a
little fairy chamber, a chamber with yellow walls and yellow rug, white
furniture, oddments of china and photographs, silver-grey etchings,
water-colour landscapes, piles of books and magazines. On a small table
stood a yellow Sèvres vase, full of roses.
"It's a horrible place for a man to sit in," she said, looking around
her. "You must take that wicker chair and throw away as many cushions
as you like. Now I am going to fetch my uncle, and remember, please,"
she concluded, looking back at him from the door, "if I have seemed
frivolous this morning, I am not always so. More than anything I am
looking forward, down at Lyndwood, to have you, if you will, talk to me
seriously."
"Shall I dare to argue with you, I wonder?" he asked.
She smiled at him.
"Why not? A matter of courage?"
"The bravest person in the world," he declared, "remembers always that
little proverb about discretion."