Julian walked easily and swiftly up the slopes of the downs, whistling
as he went. He knew the point from which he would be sure to see his
flying nymph. The air was full of the songs of larks; beneath his feet
the short grasses and wild thyme sent up a clean and pungent fragrance.
The little, comfortable beauties of the summer's day filled his heart
with gladness. There was no sound in all the sleepy country-side; the
peaceful shining clouds floated over the low green hills as vague as
waking dreams.
The cropping of the sheep upon the downs, the searching, spiral laughter
of the larks, were part of the air itself; and the shadows ran an
interminable race across the long green meadows.
Julian had had experiences of love before, but he had never been in love
as he was now. He compared these earlier efforts in his mind with the
light clouds that melted into the sunshine. Marian was the sunshine;
she thrilled and warmed his whole being. She was like an adventure to
him. He felt very humble in his heart to think the sun had cared to
shine upon him, and very strong to meet its shining.
He noticed little things he had never noticed before: the feathery, fine
stalks of the harebells, and the blue butterflies that moved among them
like traveling flowers. Usually, when he walked, he noticed only the
quickest way to reach his goal. He noticed that now, but he tried not to
crush the small down flowers on his way.
He caught sight of Marian from a ridge of down, sitting motionless and
erect upon the rim of an old chalk-pit. A long, blue veil hung over her
shoulders like the wings of a blue butterfly fluttering before him. She
saw his shadow before he reached her, and threw her head back with a
little gesture that was half a welcome and half a defiance.
He came swiftly across the grass toward her, but it was she who was
breathless when he took her in his arms.
"Trying to run away from me, are you?" he asked, smiling down at her.
"The world's too small here, and it's mine, you know. You shouldn't
have come here if you had wanted to escape me."
"Let me go, Julian," she murmured. "I'm sure there's a shepherd close
by. Sit down and be sensible."
"Shepherds be hanged!" said Julian, kissing her. "Do you suppose
anybody's ever been more sensible than I feel now? Kissing you is the
most sensible thing a man ever did; but don't let anybody else guess
it."
He sat down at her feet and looked up into the beautiful, flushed face
above him. It was as lovely as a lifted flower; but unlike the flower,
it was not very soft. It was even like a slightly sophisticated hothouse
flower; but she had the look of race he loved. Her level, penciled
brows, small, straight nose, curved lips, and chin like a firm, round
apple, were the heritage of generations of handsome lives. Her coloring
was only a stain of pink upon a delicate, clear whiteness; but the eyes
beneath the low, smooth forehead, were disappointing. They were well-cut
hazel eyes, without light in them. They lay in her head a little flat,
like the pieces of a broken mirror.
Just now they were at their tenderest. Her whole face, bending over him,
cool and sweet as the southwest wind and as provocative as the flying
clouds, moved his heart almost unbearably. She was like an English
summer day, and he knew now what it would mean to leave her.
"I couldn't bear to stay down there," she explained. "I was frightened,
not of you, you absurd person, but of being glad. I'm afraid I don't
like big feelings very much. I can't explain exactly, but the papers
frightened me. I wanted to see you too much. Yes, sir, you may keep that
for a prize to your vanity; and I knew that if there should be war--"
She stopped, her lovely lips trembled a little. "I shall have to let you
go so soon!" she whispered.
[Illustration: "I'm afraid I don't like big feelings much"]
He bowed his head over her hand and kissed it passionately.
"If I could spare you this pain," he said, "I'd take a thousand
lives--and lose them to do it!"
"No! no!" she murmured. "Keep one, Julian!"
He lifted his head and looked at her steadily.
"I swear I'll keep it," he said. "I'll keep it, and bring it back to
you, cost what it may."
It did not look as if it were going to cost very much, with the light
clouds passing overhead, and the soft down grasses under them; and their
great citadels of youth and love about them, unmenaced and erect.
"I've a piece of work I've got to do," Julian went on, "and I can't tell
you anything about it. It'll take me three months, I fancy. I can fight
afterward."
She looked at him with eyes in which astonishment turned almost hostile.
"Not fighting?" she said. "But what do you mean, Julian? If we go in,
every one must fight. I know you're not a soldier, but there'll be
volunteers. With all your adventures and experiences, they are sure to
give you a good post. Everybody knows you. What do you mean--a job you
can't tell me about--unless, of course it's something naval?"
Julian turned his face to the wild thyme. He shook his head.
"No, not that," he said. "Can't you trust me, Marian?"
"Trust you!" she said impatiently. "Of course I can trust you, but why
be so mysterious? Mightn't I equally say, 'Why don't you trust me?'"
"It's part of my job," said Julian quietly, "not to trust the ground
we're on or the larks in the sky or the light of my heart,--that's you,
Marian,--and it doesn't happen to be the easiest part of my job."
He waited for her to make it easier for him, but he waited in vain.
Marian expected easy things, but she did not expect to have to make
things easy. These two expectations seldom go together.
"Do you mean to tell me that you are going to be some kind of spy?" she
asked in a tone of frank disgust. "Oh, Julian! I couldn't bear it! It's
so--so--un-English!"
Julian chuckled. He ought not to have chuckled. If a man does not like a
woman with brains, he must learn not to laugh at their absence. Marian
stiffened under his laughter.
"England's got to be awfully un-English in some ways if it wants to win
this war," he explained. "But you mustn't even to yourself put a name
to what I'm going to be. I'm just on a job that'll take me three months,
and I'm afraid, my darling, I can't send you a word. That cuts me all to
bits, but you're so brave, so brave, you'll let me go."
He buried his head in the grass; he was not brave enough to bear to see
the strain he was putting on her courage. Nor was Marian.
"No, Julian," she said, "you mustn't ask such a thing of me. Not to know
where you are, and not to be able to tell any one what you are doing! To
let you go out into the dark at a time like this! It's too much to ask
of me. Promise me you'll give up all idea of it, and try to get a
commission like other people. Surely that's hard enough for me. But I'll
bear that; I will never make it difficult for you by a word or a look; I
wouldn't hold you back a day! You've not settled anything of course?"
He told her that he had settled everything, and that in two days he must
go.
A terrible silence fell between them, a cold silence that was like the
pressure of a stone. Neither of them moved or looked at the other.
Julian took her hand. She did not withdraw it from him, but she left it
in his as unresponsive as a fallen leaf.
"Marian," he whispered, "Marian. Love me a little."
She would not turn her face to him.
"Why do you talk to me of love," she asked bitterly, "when without
consulting me you do something which involves your whole life and mine!"
He caught her in his arms and held her close to him, kissing her cold
lips till they answered him.
"My darling! my darling!" he whispered, "I love you like this and like
this! It's sheer murder to leave you! I feel as if it would break me.
But I've got to go. Don't you see, don't you understand? It's work I do
well, it's important, just now it's more important than fighting; it's
not one man's life that hangs on it, but it's thousands. Believe me,
there's no dishonor in it. Love me or you'll break me, Marian! Don't be
against me. I couldn't stand it. Say you'll let me go, for if I go and
you don't say it, I'll go as a broken man."
She pushed him gently away from her, considering him. She knew her
terrible power. She was very angry with him, and she had hurt him as
much as she meant to hurt him. She had no intention whatever of breaking
him. If he was going to do this kind of work, he must do it well.
Perhaps, after all, it was rather important; but important or not, he
should have asked her first. She laid her small hand over his big one
with a delicate pressure.
"Never settle such a thing again without telling me," she said gravely.
Julian promised quickly that he never would. He saw for the first time
that love was not liberty, and for the moment he preferred love. He had
not felt deeply enough to know that there is a way in which you may
widen liberty and yet keep love.
"I shall let you go," Marian said gently, "and I shall try to bear it as
best I can."
At the thought of how difficult it was going to be to bear, not to be
able to tell anybody anything, she cried a little. Her face was
uncontorted by her tears. They streamed down her blossom-colored cheeks
like drops of pearly dew. Julian thought her tears were softness, and
he struck at his chance. Now perhaps she would surrender to his hidden
hope.
He pleaded, with her head against his heart, that she would marry him,
marry him now--at once. He could arrange it all in twenty-four hours. He
presented a thousand impetuous arguments. All his wits and his ardor
fought for him against her soft, closed eyes. She was his; she would be
his forever. He would go with that great possession in his heart; he
would go like a man crowned to meet his future.
She opened her eyes at last and moved away from him. At that instant she
would have liked to marry him, she would have liked it very much; but
besides the fact that she had no things, there loomed the blank
uncertainty of the future. Would she be a wife or a widow, and how
should she know which she was? There were more immediate difficulties.
Her parents were in Scotland; hurried weddings were always very awkward;
you couldn't have bridesmaids or wedding presents; and a few hours'
honeymoon, with an indefinite parting ahead of it, would be extremely
painful.
Even if a marriage under all these disabilities was legal--wouldn't it
be worse than illegal--wouldn't it be rather funny?
Julian was sometimes impossible; he had been nearly overwhelming, but he
was quite impossible. He might be a dangerous man to marry in a hurry.
She would have to train him first.
"It's out of the question, Julian," she said firmly. "The whole future
is too uncertain. I should love to--but I can't do it. It wouldn't be
right for me to do it. We must wait till you come back."
Julian returned to his study of the short down grasses. He knew that if
she had loved to--she would have done it. He had a moment that was
bitter with doubt and pain; then his love rose up and swallowed it. He
saw the uncertainty for her.
He wanted her now because he knew that he might never have her. He
wanted her with the fierce hunger of a pirate for a prize; but the very
sharpness of his desire made him see that it was sheer selfishness to
press his point. He overlooked the fact that it would have been
perfectly useless. No pressure would have changed Marian. Pressure had
done what it could for her already: it had moved her to tears. She dried
them now, and suggested that they had stayed on the downs long enough.