A threatening sky was scudding before a fast-rising gale, and an
ominous dread lay over the marsh, but Roger Lyndesay walked in a
sheltered corner at Kilne between borders of yellow crocus. The hill
behind stood like a giant screen between him and the rough weather
coming straight from the sea. There was a stone seat let into the side
of the fell, where he rested every now and again, looking through the
swaying veil of budding branches to the creepered house where he and
his forefathers had lived so long, and from its windows had watched
ceaselessly over Crump. Even now, though the years were passing, the
prestige of the agency still remained with old Roger. Any old tenant,
questioned in a hurry, would still have given his name. Rent-day found
most of them still besieging his door. Even Callander had a curious
feeling that he himself was no more than pupil or assistant to the fine
old man.
Pacing slowly in his shelter, Roger found himself wishing, with the
ache of an old hurt apparently long healed, that Deborah had been a
boy. With his own death, and her possible marriage to a stranger, their
particular branch would be cut from the old root for ever. It hurt
him to think that Kilne would pass into other hands, that others, not
of his blood, would sit in his window and look across the river with
different eyes. They would never know the myriad faces of the land as
he knew them; nor watch as he for the continual miracle of the sun
springing red over Cappelside, or dropping yellow behind the Hall, or
flinging long shafts of gold down the shadowed aisles of beech. In
how many years would they learn the perfect moment when the avenue
was at its best; the time of year when the rooks held parliament on
the hill; and just what trick of wind brought the clearest music from
the kennels? In how many generations would they come to pass the deer
without seeing a single head raised in fear, or stretch an empty hand
for the gentle nibbling of the collared King of the Herd? Would they
heed the kingfisher at his evening drink, or the corncrake calling the
scythe all night long, or the sleek head of the otter rising from the
deep pool under the old bridge? And would they sit in the dark, alone
and perfectly content, watching the lights of Crump across the black
water as men watch shrine-candles in the dim church of their worship?
These things, that made the life of his soul, were the natural heritage
of a son of Kilne, who needed scant initiation into their mysteries.
But there was no son at Kilne; only a daughter, into whose hands the
birthright of love and service could never fall.
He was roused from his brooding by the sound of hoofs stamping
at the gate, and with some curiosity he trod slowly round to find
Slinker’s wife on the point of slipping from the saddle. His mind had
been so much in the past that his fast-fading memory failed to put a
name to her, and as she stooped with a smile to hand him a letter,
mourning-edged, his courtly old heart warmed to her grace and spirit.
“For Deb,” she told him, as he took the envelope, and was on the point
of asking to see her when her horse, which had been plunging and
backing, swung her across the road and almost on to the iron railing.
“He’s girthed too tight, I think,” she explained, when she had brought
him back and slid to the ground. “He’s a perfect mount, as a rule,
but he’s been behaving badly all the way, so I think there must be
something wrong.”
She pulled off her gauntlets and lifted the flap, but Roger Lyndesay
interposed with a courteous movement.
“Allow me!” he said gently, and she stood aside while he loosened the
girths, the horse standing quietly enough, even turning his head to
push softly at Roger’s shoulder. And she knew, as she watched, why
Deborah’s hands were so like Christian’s.
When he had settled things to his satisfaction, and dropped a last
caress on the smooth neck, the old man turned with a smile and
gallantly offered his palm to mount her; but she stepped back, shaking
her head, the embarrassed colour rising to her eyes.
“Not that!” she said firmly, as he stared in surprise. “I can’t allow
you to do that. That sort of thing’s for gentlefolk, Mr. Lyndesay, not
for old Steenie Stone’s daughter!”
A faint flush swept over the ivory face, and the proud old back made an
effort after its ancient dignity.
“You are Stanley’s widow--Mrs. Lyndesay?” he asked coldly and with a
touch of resentment, as if she had entrapped him, helpless, into an
impossible situation.
“That’s what they call me here.” Mrs. Slinker nodded, with her hand
on the stirrup. “I don’t call myself that, you may be sure, least of
all to _you_, Mr. Lyndesay! You think I’m an interloper, I know, and
you’re quite right. I’ve no business at Crump--I know my place well
enough for that. There are plenty of folks ready enough to cocker me
and tell me I’m a fine lady, but for all that I don’t forget who I am.
And I remember you, Mr. Lyndesay, ever since I could walk. You used to
come over to my father’s, often, and you always had a look and a kind
word for me--_then_. I can see you now, cantering into the yard on that
grand chestnut of yours--they’ve always had chestnuts at Crump, haven’t
they?--and all the stable doors flung wide for you to have your pick.
You did all the choosing for William Lyndesay, I’ve heard Father say,
and he kept a fine stud up at the Hall in those days, didn’t he?”
Old Roger was half-turned to the gate, looking down at the road, but
she could tell that he was listening.
“Old days are best, after all, aren’t they?” she went on, with a
wistful drop of her voice. “I used to stop up at Dockerneuk when I was
a girl--many a happy time I’ve had there; I’ve had nothing like it
since. Now I’m stopping at the Hall--it’s queer, isn’t it? My father
made a lot of money, you know, and he had me well-educated--when he
could get me to leave him and his horses! And when he died, I went
abroad for a bit; my sister had married in Canada, and it was pretty
lonely for Nettie Stone. I’d known Stanley as a boy, and I came across
him again at Taormina--well, we needn’t talk about that, need we? But
I’d like you to know that I haven’t forgotten my place. My father
thought the world of you and your judgment, and he taught his daughter
to do the same. I’ll always have that picture of you, riding into
Hundhow, straight as an arrow, on Crump Clever Lass, with all the doors
flying open, and my father on the step, smiling and touching his hat.
I may seem a rank outsider, Mr. Lyndesay, an impertinent upstart to an
aristocrat like you, but I’m touching my hat to you all the time in my
heart!”
Roger turned slowly and looked at her as she stood fumbling with the
stirrup, her pleading eyes fixed on him, and the deferential sentences
hurrying each other from her lips. Then he swept his hat very low, and
offered his hand a second time for her foot. She accepted it, now, with
a tremulous smile; and as he put it up, the next moment, to straighten
her habit, she caught it between her own, palm upward, looking at it.
“Only a little dust,” she said, very tenderly and reverently. “Nothing
to hurt even a Lyndesay! And I didn’t weigh much heavier myself, did
I? I shall always remember that you paid me the greatest honour of my
life!”
She turned her horse and rode away quickly, for the tears were in her
eyes, and Roger Lyndesay went slowly into the house with the note.
He found Deb in the pantry, polishing the silver candlesticks which
had been William Lyndesay’s last gift to him; and again, as he looked
at her bright youth and alert grace, the longing came to him that she
had been a boy. He passed his hand lovingly over the shining metal, and
along the inscription with its sincere words of recognition.
“They are yours, Deb, remember,” he said, laying down the letter, as
she put the leather back in its place. “If I had a son, they would be
his, of course, but as it is, they are yours. Keep them always. Don’t
let any of the Morton people have them.”
“Just let them try!” Deb answered defiantly, hugging her treasure
jealously in her arms. “Don’t be afraid, Dad. I’ll never let anybody
else put a finger on them. And I’ll stick to them if I’m starving in
the street, with the pair of them tucked safely under my shawl!”
“You should have been a boy!” he sighed, giving vent to his insistent
thought at last. “As it is, you will have to leave Kilne when I am
gone. If you had been a boy, you would have had the agency, and stayed
on here for life. You would have taken on the work as a matter of
course.”
“Should I?” she asked, with her eyes on the candlesticks.
“Why, certainly--if you had been a boy. You would have belonged to the
old place like the rest of us. As things are, you cannot be expected to
feel the call.”
“Can’t a girl feel it, then?” Deb enquired, without lifting her eyes.
“Does a girl never hanker after her father’s profession, and feel that
the rest of life is nothing beside it?”
He smiled faintly with a touch of amusement, shaking his head.
“How should a girl hear a call of that kind? It’s the men that count in
that, not the women--never the women. If I had had a son, _he_ would
have heard it. You have been a good daughter to me, Deborah, but it
takes a man to understand these things.”
He went back into the garden after that, forgetting that he had said
nothing of Mrs. Stanley, and for a long time Deb stood rigid, gazing
into vacancy, the candlesticks clasped in her arms. All the hidden
longing of her childhood, all the repressed passion of her later
years, rose and swept over her in a flood, and sobbed and tore at
her heart. Not even her father, living in such close communion with
her, had guessed at the motive of her whole being. If only she had
been a boy--ah, if only she had been a boy! But she was nothing but
a helpless, useless, girl, and soon, very soon, perhaps, she would
be in exile, as the boy need never have been. She was a girl, and
she would have to go. She gripped the candlesticks tighter. In that
moment she swore to marry Christian, no matter what the rash act might
bring--pain, shame, or lifelong remorse; and the ironic gods, who await
our flashes of complete decision to hound on their instant refutation,
loosed their leash.
She had avoided him since the concert, disappearing along side-roads
and sending down messages of excuse when he called; but all that was
over. She would avoid him no more. This one means of restitution was
left to the girl who ought to have been a boy.
At last she drew a long, sobbing breath and stirred, setting down the
candlesticks and reaching for the forgotten note. Its contents came as
a sharp surprise, for they requested her attendance upon Mrs. Lyndesay
at her earliest possible convenience.
Her first impulse was to let the command--for it was nothing
less--pass unnoticed, but she reflected that, under the circumstances,
such flagrant independence would scarcely be wise. She could marry
Christian, of course, in the face of his mother’s opposition, but the
situation was more than likely to be sufficiently unpleasant, in any
case, and only folly would deliberately add to it. She dressed slowly,
knowing she would go, but debating the point impatiently, nevertheless,
and turning even at the gate on a sharp impulse of resentment and
defiance. An old hawker, passing, lifted his ragged whip and shook it
at her with a toothless smile.
“Never turn back, lady!” the old voice creaked across the wall. “It’s
bad luck to turn when you’ve once started. You’ll not prosper, lady!
You’ll rue it before morning!”
She laughed, waving her hand after the rattling cart, and forgot the
superstition on the spot; but later--that very night--the warning came
back to her, knife-edged.
Still, the incident had shaken her out of her morbid self-introspection,
and she walked rapidly to Crump, refusing stoutly to fear what lay
before her. It was foolish to cross bridges until you came to them, and
the unexpected might prove pleasant, after all. Perhaps an apology for
the slight on her father--but even her sudden change of mood could not
show her Mrs. Lyndesay apologising to anybody about anything.
Nettie appeared from the stable-yard as she approached, and came to
meet her. She wondered whether Deborah knew of her recent interview,
but as the girl said nothing, she guessed that the old man had not
told, and she held her peace. Not until years after he was dead, did
she tell Roger Lyndesay’s daughter of the little scene she had held
sacred so long.
“I don’t know why you were asked,” she observed, as they went up the
approach together. “She never mentions you to me, you know, and I can’t
exactly make a point of discussing you. I was just asked to deliver the
note, that was all. It’s ripping of you to come, _I_ think. Wild horses
wouldn’t have dragged me if she’d treated me as she’s treated you.”
“I was born at the beck of Crump,” Deb answered, looking up at the
old house. “It’s in the blood, and I can’t help it. _You_ can afford
to snap your fingers at it, but Kilne must come running if it lifts a
hand.”
“I wish to goodness I _had_ snapped my fingers at it!” Mrs. Slinker
said sadly, as they went in. (She had not seen Dixon for a month.)
“Rishwald dines here to-night,” she added, in a lighter tone. “I’m
getting rather worried about him, to tell the truth. I fancy he
thinks I’d make a nice match for his Tobies and Queen Annes. No--not
there”--as Deb turned instinctively towards the library. “Upstairs, in
Stanley’s own room--horrid little smoke-pot! You know it, of course, so
I’ll let you go alone; but if she gets really rampant, just let out a
yell, and I’ll come up at a gallop.”
She let go the girl’s hand rather reluctantly, for Deb had
unconsciously gone white; and then, on a sudden impulse, she stooped
and kissed her.
“I’m older than you,” she said, almost apologetically, “older and
harder, and I’ve got used to the atmosphere of this mouldy old place.
I won’t let it suck the soul out of me. It gets you by the throat,
doesn’t it, when you come in? It’s--it’s the old lady!”--she nodded
upstairs, a look half-mischievous, half-frightened, on her face--“Mrs.
Lyndesay and that vampire of a tree out on the lawn. When they’re gone,
please God, there’ll be a clean wind blowing through Crump!”
She disappeared, and Deb, ascending past an open window facing west,
was caught in a great blast of air, shaking the pictures on the walls,
and shrieking eerily round the eaves, as the tide rose and the gale
grew steadily from the sea. She drew in a deep breath of it before she
climbed the last stair and knocked at Slinker’s door.
Personality clings to a room long after the occupant is dead,
especially if it be left untouched, and as she entered, meeting the
portrait’s meaning smile, it seemed to her that Slinker himself was
there indeed. She had forgotten the picture, and the shock of it held
her captive for a moment, until, dropping her eyes, she met the same
disconcerting smile on the cold lips of his mother. Her first words
made her start, translating as they did the thought in her mind.
“Oh, yes, he’s here!” Mrs. Lyndesay said coolly. “You felt him when you
opened the door--don’t deny it. He is here, all the time, listening
when we speak.” She looked round at one of the big chairs by the fire,
and Deborah felt a sudden fear thrill the morbid atmosphere already
invoked. Yet the eyes that turned back to her were sane enough, and
hard as gems are hard, as the light on a new-drawn sword, and the line
of Lake hills before rain.
“People never die,” said Mrs. Lyndesay. “You think you’ve got rid of
them, but they come back--they always come back. Yet Stanley is dead in
the eyes of the world, and Christian follows him. That is sufficient
for you. You would have married Stanley; and now you mean to marry--his
heir!”
Deborah drew back, the blood surging to her face, for she had never
thought of this. Christian had passed his word to say nothing, and she
had given no soul on earth a clue to their secret.
“You wonder how I know?” Mrs. Lyndesay asked smoothly. “It is
simple--these things are always simple.” She indicated the window
looking towards the stables. “One of the boys was talking of you,
to-day. He had followed hounds, it seemed, the day of the Crump meet.
He informed an assembly of open-mouthed employees that he had seen
Christian holding your hand. Does it please you to be meat for gossip
in the mart of the stable-yard?”
Deb, beaten to the wall, looked helplessly round the room, only to be
conscious of enmity everywhere, from the politely-sneering portrait
to her late picture-postcard rivals. She wondered vaguely what had
happened to her own photograph, and concluded that Slinker’s mother had
destroyed it. Meanwhile the passionless voice went on relentlessly.
“It is a fortnight since the meet, and you have not as yet seen
fit to give me any information on this point. I must conclude,
therefore, that you intend to be married secretly, so that you can
snap your fingers in the face of disapproval, mine and that of every
right-thinking individual. For I know that you _do_ mean to marry my
son. I have known it--sub-consciously, I suppose--ever since the day of
Stanley’s death. You mean to marry Christian as you would have married
his brother--for Crump!”
There was a pause, and then Deb said--“It is true!” as she had said
once before on a similar night of storm, in the library downstairs.
The other looked at her with a certain cold wonder.
“Lyndesays are all ambitious,” she said, “all ambitious and all proud.
I myself am a Lyndesay born, as you know. But you are more ambitious,
prouder, surer of yourself than any of us. You would seize Crump in the
teeth of all right feeling, decency and respect, grasping an honour
snatched from the very hand of the dead. Was there not enough of the
scandal laid to your credit, that you must force another upon the
family?”
“The scandal was not of my making!” Deb replied, and the older woman
gave a curious laugh.
“Stanley is listening, remember! Perhaps _he_ could tell us how you
tempted him, how the force of your passion to be mistress of Crump
carried him off his feet and made him false to his vows--for a while.
He would have gone back to his wife--I, his mother, tell you that. Do
not flatter yourself that you would have had him, in any case, had he
lived. He would have gone back to his wife! You came at a time when he
was lonely and unhappy, and you drew him to you by the same spell that
you have thrown over Christian. But the one escaped you, and so shall
the other--ay, if he has to follow the same road!”
“Stanley came to me of his own accord!” Deb began hotly, and stopped,
for the insidious atmosphere crept upon her, filling her with doubt.
Perhaps, after all, she had drawn Stanley without knowing it. He had
ignored her at first, but later, when she had turned on him on the
subject of some ill-used servant, he had laughed at her and made
friends with her; and after that he had seemed unable to keep away.
His eyes had followed her hungrily and almost helplessly, and in her
presence he had been generally good-humoured and even kind. Had she
indeed a spell that drew these men to her whether she would or not? The
thought struck her sharply that even Christian had never said he loved
her. He did not love her, she felt that, but she had thought him near
it. Was it just the charm working, and no more--the attraction of her
longing, the magnetism of her passionate desire?
“Christian pities you!” the voice went on cruelly. “He realises
all that you lost when you lost Stanley. He thinks he owes you his
brother’s debt. He does not love you--surely you cannot imagine that?
Christian does not care for women. He is as cold as Galahad. But he
can give you as much as Stanley could have given you--his place and
his prestige, his house and his money, his carriages and horses,
his hothouses, hounds and men! He thinks you are breaking your heart
for these--all the things after which a poor relation naturally
hankers--and he is generous enough to wish that you should have them.
Christian would always have given his last coin to a beggar--and this
is yours. A delicate position, isn’t it?” she sneered. “Will you still
take Crump at the price?”
Deb said “Yes!” faintly enough, but clinging to her determination
and nebulous hopes in spite of the crushing opposition closing about
her. She had had a vision of things come right, up on the hill alone
with Christian, and its fragrant promise clung to her dimly even yet.
Moreover, she would never crawl to this woman.
Mrs. Lyndesay seemed puzzled. She had been so sure of her instrument,
and she wondered where her touch had failed.
“I thought not even you could have sunk to that!” she said at last.
“Will you marry a second man who cares no more for you than for a pet
horse or hound?”
Deb winced and looked away, and this time the other followed her glance
as it went back to the place where her photograph had hung. “Christian
took your picture,” she said casually. “I missed it one day just after
he had been in. It was last year--months since--when he hardly knew
and was scarcely interested in you, so you will not be able to flatter
yourself that he was in love with you _then_! I suppose he took it
because he was sorry for you--that is Christian all over. He always
hated this room, and you were obviously out of place among these birds
of a feather!”
She waved her hand scornfully at the cheap faces she hated, yet which
she permitted no one else to handle, and sat back, satisfied, awaiting
results. And she had every reason to be satisfied, for her last speech
had clinched her argument in full, though after a fashion of which she
did not dream.
Deb stood staring at the empty space, unconscious for the moment of the
evil presences lying in wait, seeing only the kindness in Christian’s
face as his hand went out to her, and the delicate chivalry that had
hastened to shield a girl he scarcely knew and could hardly respect. He
filled the room in spite of his brother--at that instant, Slinker was
certainly and praisefully dead--and the dream on the hill caught her
again in its rosy fingers. The inner meaning of her heart-searchings
came home to her in a flash of revelation, and she understood why she
had hesitated to wrong him and herself, as she had never hesitated with
Stanley--why she must give him up now when he had grown to fill her
whole world. For she knew at last that she loved him.
The room ceased to have any hold on her. The portrait’s eyes claimed
her no longer. She turned back to Mrs. Lyndesay, bewildering her with a
sudden smile.
“I will give him up!” she said definitely, in a tone that held neither
resignation nor defeat, but something brighter and braver than had ever
purified the atmosphere of Slinker’s lair. “I will give him back his
promise--not because you have badgered me into submission, nor because
I am afraid of gossip or the idle chatter of a few stable-boys, but
because I know something now that I did not know before. I could hold
him in spite of you, but I will not try.”
“I will not try!” she said a second time, and laid her sword at her
enemy’s feet.
There was a moment’s silence, while the mistress of Crump leaned across
the table, staring into the girl’s face; then pushed back her chair
with an abrupt movement.
“Why, I believe you love him!” she exclaimed incredulously, and as Deb
looked at her, saying nothing--“You poor fool!” she added harshly, and
at that moment Christian knocked and entered.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked pleasantly, looking from one to the
other. “Nettie told me Deborah was here.” He held out his hand, and she
put hers into it mechanically. “When you’ve finished, will you lend her
to me for a little while? Callander and I have been hammering away at
that boundary dispute, and Deb is sure to know the rights of the case.”
“Deborah is here to show you the rights of some other question,” his
mother replied curtly, rising. “I will leave you to discuss it.” She
moved to the door, but Christian put out his arm.
“Please explain!” he said gently. “What have you been saying to
Deborah? Anything that concerns her concerns me--now.”
“She is here to undeceive you on that point. I am aware that you have
foolishly allowed yourself to be entrapped into an engagement, much as
your brother was caught before you, but that, too, is at an end. You
have me to thank for your liberty. Deborah has given me her word to set
you free.”
Christian, his mind in a whirl, looked across at Deb, standing
motionless by the window, gazing down into the yard. Something had
happened, though he could not even begin to guess what it was, except
that in some mysterious way his mother had come to know of the contract
on the hill. But at least she should not interfere. She had taken
something from him once already in this very room, but she should never
take from him the man’s right to choose his own mate. His colour rose
as he still barred her exit.
“I don’t understand how you know anything about it,” he said quickly.
“Not that it matters. Of course we should have told you very soon. I
should have liked you to have been glad, but I want Deborah for my
wife in any case, and if she is willing to come to me, I will not let
anything else stand in the way.”
“You will find more than enough in the way,” Mrs. Lyndesay answered
strangely. “You will find--Deborah herself!” And at her imperious
gesture he lowered his arm and watched her pass from the room. Deb’s
heart followed her in a faint thrill of feeling towards a personality
she had always hated. At least she had not betrayed her, even by a
hint. For the first and last time in her life, she was grateful to her.
She stood by the window, thinking hard. It was plain that Christian was
not ready to let her go. His liberty would have to be forced upon him,
for she had passed her word and she meant to keep it. She might have
risked her soul for Crump, but she would not throw her new-born love
into the scale.
He came to her quickly, demanding--“What does it mean?” puzzled and
impatient. “Who can have said anything to my mother? Not you, of
course. But who can possibly have told?”
“That infinitesimal Sherlock--a stable-boy!” she answered lightly,
looking at the wide quadrangle of buildings below. “One of your small
fry saw us up on Linacre, and Mrs. Lyndesay overheard the result of his
observations.”
“Then that settles it!” he said definitely. “You must give me
permission to announce our engagement at once.”
But Deb shook her head.
“Your mother told you that I had thought better of it. It’s the truth,
so you may as well accept it without argument. I expect you’ll be
rather relieved, as a matter of fact. You’re too nice to be married for
your property, Christian, and I think I’m too nice to be married for
pity.”
“Pity!” He took her hands and turned her towards him, keenly searching
her face. “Why, Debbie dear, you can’t really think anything as silly
as that! We’re such good friends, you and I--don’t let my mother’s
bitterness wrench us apart.”
“We can still be good friends,” she answered steadily. “It isn’t as if
there had ever been any--anything that mattered--between us. These last
two weeks don’t count--not as they would have counted if we’d--cared.
You were feeling chivalrous up at Linacre, and I was lonely, thinking
of the day when I should have to leave Kilne. That’s not sufficient
foundation for a lifetime together, and we knew it well enough, even
then. Let’s go back to what we were. After all, no--no harm--has been
done.”
“No harm?” Christian echoed. “It depends what you mean by that. How can
we go back? And of course these two weeks count! Do you think a man
ever feels the same towards a woman after he has once thought of her
definitely as his wife, even for a day? It’s absurd to talk like that.
You’re mine, and I mean to keep you. Have I done anything unconsciously
to make you change your mind?--or is it just my mother’s influence
and no more? You don’t like me less than you did, do you?” he went on
earnestly. “I’ll cut my throat if you don’t go on liking me, Debbie
dear!”
She laughed, though the tears were behind.
“You’re as nice as ever you can be! I’ve told you that once
already--too nice to be handed over to anybody you don’t want so
frightfully that you’d climb the stars for her. And that isn’t how you
feel towards a ‘friend,’ Squire Lakin’ Lyndesay!”
“But I do!” he protested hotly. “I don’t only think of you as a
comrade, though you’re the best a man could want. I think of you as the
woman I love----”
“Ah, don’t say it!” She stopped him, her voice full of pain, and they
stood silent, staring out of the window.
Which of them was right at that moment he could not have told. He was
only conscious that she was necessary to him, that she filled an empty
place in his heart, strengthening his hand by the touch of hers. He saw
her as a kindred spirit upon whom he could rely, a fountain of that
sympathy of which he had been so stubbornly deprived, the dearest part
of the new life he had been called upon to lead; and he could not let
her go. He tightened his clasp on her hands and drew her nearer.
“You’ve been thinking things, all sorts of absurd and unkind things,
and my mother’s been thinking other things for you; but now you’ve got
to think with _me_ and listen to _me_! I want you for my wife, Deb, and
it doesn’t matter a jot _why_ you marry me as long as you _do_ marry
me, so tell me I still have your promise, and trust me to bring my
mother round, after a while.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Deb looked at him intently, sadly, yet with a
touch of mischief in spite of her aching heart. “It doesn’t _really_
matter if I marry you for a daily drive behind liveries, rather than
for the sake of belonging to you and being your wife?--not because I
want to be with you always, and because of the way you smile and speak,
and bring the sunshine with you wherever I happen to be, but because it
is a fine thing to be mistress of Crump, and to have the first place
at dinner parties, and all the County kowtowing to me, hat in hand? It
doesn’t _really_ matter?”
His face fell boyishly, and she drew a sharp breath of mixed relief and
pain, for if he had loved her he would have known how hopelessly she
had betrayed herself in that last speech. He would have caught her in
his arms and crushed her foolish argument into silence; not have stood
looking down at her doubtfully, as Christian was doing, half-smiling
and half abashed.
“But you _do_ like to be with me, don’t you?” he asked anxiously; and
she just answered, “Oh, Christian!” rather hysterically, trying to free
her hands, and after a moment’s struggle he let them go.
“I don’t believe that you only care for the flesh-pots,” he said, his
face very troubled. “You always make out that you do, but anybody who
knows you as well as I do can see that you’re not really like that.
It’s only natural, of course, that the place should appeal to you.
You’re not a Lyndesay for nothing. But you’re too fine a nature to
marry a man for whom you had no feeling whatever. If you care for me
only a little, Deb, we’ll get along all right and make life a success.
Others have done it who didn’t start with half as good a friendship as
ours. Tell me it’s not just the place and nothing else, and I’ll keep
you in spite of everybody, in spite of my mother, in spite of yourself.
Tell me you care a little!”
“As I cared for Stanley!” she answered steadily, making a last effort;
and as the portrait flashed back upon their consciousness, it seemed
to both that Slinker himself was in very truth standing there between
them.