"No; not for him--or for me."
He sprang to his feet. "Look here, Olivia," he cried, nervously, holding
his chair by the back, "what does it all mean? What are you leading up
to?"
"I'm telling you as plainly as I can."
"What you aren't telling me as plainly as you can is which of us you're
in love with."
She colored. It was one of those blushes that spread up the temples and
over the brows and along the line of the hair with the splendor of a
stormy dawn.
"I didn't know the question had been raised," she said, "but since
apparently it has--"
It might have been contrition for a foolish speech, or fear of what she
was going to say, that prompted him to interrupt her hurriedly:
"I beg your pardon. It was idiotic of me to say that. I didn't mean it.
As a matter of fact, I'm jumpy. I'm not master of myself. So much has
been happening--"
He came round the table, and, snatching one of her hands, he kissed it
again and again. He even sank on one knee beside her, holding her close
to him. With the hand that remained free she stroked his crisp, wavy,
iron-gray hair as a sign of pardon.
"You're quite wrong about me," he persisted.
"Even if you're right about other Englishmen--which I don't
admit--you're wrong about me, by Jove! If I had to give up everything I
had in the world I should have all the compensation a man could desire
if I got you."
She leaned over him, pressing his head against her breast, as she
whispered:
"You couldn't get me that way. You must understand--I must make it as
plain to you as I can--that I couldn't go to you except as an equal. I
couldn't go to any man--"
He sprang to his feet. "But you _came_ to me as an equal," he cried, in
tones of exasperation. "That's all over and done with. It's too late to
reconsider the step we've taken--too late for me--much too late!--and
equally too late for you."
"I can't admit that, Rupert. I've still the right to draw back."
"The legal right--yes; whether or not you've the moral right would
depend on your sense of honor."
"Of honor?"
"Certainly. There's an honor for you as well as for me. When I'm so true
to you it wouldn't be the square thing to play me false."
She rose without haste. "Do you call that a fair way of putting it--to
say that I play you false because I refuse to involve you in our family
disasters? I don't think any one could blame me for that."
"What they could blame you for is this--for backing out of what is
practically a marriage, and for deserting me in a way that will make it
seem as if I had deserted you. Quite apart from the fact that life won't
be worth anything to me without you, it will mean ruin as a man of honor
if I go home alone. Every one will say--_every one_--that I funked the
thing because your father--"
She hastened to speak. "That's a very urgent reason. I admit its
force--"
She paused because there was a sound of voices overhead. Footsteps came
along the upper hall and began to descend the stairs. Presently Davenant
could be heard saying:
"Then I shall tell Harrington that they may as well foreclose at one
time as another."
"Just as well." Guion's reply came from the direction of his bedroom
door. "I see nothing to be gained by waiting. The sooner it's over the
sooner to sleep, what?"
"They're talking about the mortgage on the property," she explained, as
Davenant continued to descend. "This house is to be sold--and everything
in it--"
"Which is one more reason why we should be married without delay. I
say," he added, in another tone, "let's have him in."
"Oh no! What for?"
Before she could object further, Ashley had slipped out into the hall.
"I say! Come along in."
His attitude as he stood with hands thrust into his jacket pockets and
shoulders squared bespoke conscious superiority to the man whom he was
addressing. Though Davenant was not in her line of vision she could
divine his astonishment at this easy, English unceremoniousness, as well
as his resentment to the tone of command. She heard him muttering an
excuse which Ashley interrupted with his offhand "Oh, come in. Miss
Guion would like to see you."
She felt it her duty to go forward and second this invitation. Davenant,
who was standing at the foot of the staircase, murmured something about
town and business.
"It's too late for town and business at this hour," Ashley objected.
"Come in."
He withdrew toward the room where Olivia was standing between the
portières of the doorway. Davenant yielded, partly because of his
ignorance of the small arts of graceful refusal, but more because of his
curiosity concerning the man Olivia Guion was to marry. He had some
interest, too, in observing one who was chosen where he himself had been
rejected. It would afford an answer to the question, "What lack I yet?"
with which he was tormented at all times. That it could not be a
flattering answer was plain to him from the careless, indefinable graces
of Ashley's style. It was a style that Davenant would have scorned to
imitate, but which nevertheless he envied. In contrast with its
unstudied ease he could feel his own social methods to be labored and
apologetic. Where he was watchful to do the right thing, what Ashley
said or did became the right thing because he said or did it. With the
echo of soft English vowels and clear, crisp consonants in his ears, his
own pronunciations, too, were rough with the harshness transmitted from
an ancestry to whom the melody of speech had been of no more practical
concern than the music of the spheres.
Something of all this Olivia guessed. She guessed it with a feeling of
being on his side--on the American side--which a month ago would have
astonished her. She guessed, too, on Davenant's part, that feeling of
irritation which the calm assumptions of the Old World are likely to
create when in contact with the aggressive unpretentiousness of the New,
and if need were she was ready to stand by him. All she could say,
however, for the moment was:
"Won't you sit down? Perhaps I ought to ring for tea."
She made the latter remark from habit. It was what she was accustomed to
think of when on an autumn day the sun went behind the distant rim of
Brookline hills and dusk began to gather in the oval room, as it was
gathering now. If she did not ring, it was because of her sense of the
irony of offering hospitality in a house where not even a cup of tea was
paid for.
She seated herself beside the round table in the chair she had occupied
a half-hour earlier, facing inward to the room instead of outward to the
portico. Ashley backed to the curving wall of the room, while Davenant
scarcely advanced beyond the doorway. In his slow, careful approach the
latter reminded her somewhat of a big St. Bernard dog responding to the
summons of a leopard.
"Been up to see--?" Ashley nodded in the direction of what he took to be
Guion's room.
Davenant, too, nodded, but said nothing.
"How did you find papa to-day?"
"Pretty fair, Miss Guion; only, perhaps, a little more down on his luck
than usual."
"The excitement kept him up at first. Now that that's over--"
Ashley interrupted her, addressing himself to Davenant. "I understand
that it's to you we owe Mr. Guion's relief from the most pressing part
of his cares."
Davenant's face clouded. It was the thing he was afraid of--Ashley's
intrusion into the little domain of helpfulness which for a few days he
had made his own. He answered warily:
"My business with Mr. Guion, Colonel, has been private. I hope you won't
mind if we leave it so."
Ashley's manner took on the diplomatic persuasiveness he used toward
restive barbaric potentates.
"Not a bit, my dear fellow. Of course it's private--only not as regards
Miss Guion and me. You simply _must_ allow us to say how grateful we are
for your help, even though it need be no more than temporary."
The word produced its effect. Davenant looked from Ashley to Olivia
while he echoed it. "Temporary?"