"You know not the limit of this kingdom, still you are its queen."
RABINDRANATH TAGORE.
Miss O'Neill, as might be supposed, proved no easy subject for
diplomatic manipulation. Long before they had made an end of their
picnic-lunch, in a glen of rocks and birches and purple cushions of
heather, she had effectually given Mr. Lenox to understand that she
was neither to be deceived nor coerced by his tactful attempts to
detach her from the other two. Years of pushing and shouldering
through obstacles in the Suffrage campaign, had so far blunted her
finer sensibilities that she could smilingly hold her ground even
among those who obviously wished her elsewhere: and she held it
to-day, till Mark lost patience and frankly took the bull by the
horns.
"I say, Miss O'Neill, you might take pity on Lenox and honour him
with your company up the glen," he said; and beneath his engaging
tone there lurked a faint note of command. "He's no fisherman, and
he can't keep himself to himself for ten minutes on end. So you see,
it would be a real act of charity to remove him."
"Yes, Sir Mark, I can see that without spectacles," answered the
redoubtable Harry, challenging him with her greenish-brown eyes.
"Good business!" Sir Mark retorted unabashed. "When you reach the
high moor you'll be rewarded by a view that's worth some climbing to
see. Of course, if Miss Alison would prefer to go with you----"
"Miss Alison's far too comfortable where she is, thanks!" Bel
interposed with her deliberate drawl. She had settled herself on a
low rock and sat dreamily watching the river, elbows on knees, chin
cradled in her hands. Without changing her attitude, she glanced up
at Sir Mark and her smile seemed to link them in completest
understanding. "If the necessity for silence becomes too
overpowering I can always go to sleep. I'll be as good as gold,
Harry dear--" She shifted her gaze to Miss O'Neill's resolute,
rebellious face. "And I think Sir Mark can be trusted not to let me
fall into the river!"
The upward jerk of Harry's head implied wholesale distrust of the
species; but finding herself cornered she surrendered at discretion.
"Well, Mr. Lenox," she said, "since it's a case of obeying orders, we
must make the best of each other. This way, I suppose?" She strode
on before him up the narrow, stony path; and Maurice, with an
abortive grin at Mark followed in her wake.
Keeping well ahead of him, she toiled on indomitably till trees were
dwarfed to bushes and the primeval splendour of the high moors came
suddenly into view. Before them, and upon either hand, the heather
and the heavens were all. It was as if they stood upon the shore of
an amethystine sea, studded with islands of granite and juniper, and
shadowed only by slow-moving continents of cloud. For Maurice, with
the blood of Eldred and Quita Lenox in his veins, such a vision was
among the rare things that could smite him to silence. He drew a
great breath and stood very still, his young, expressive face
glorified, passingly, by the artist's pure joy in colour, and the
Scot's love of the land.
Miss O'Neill, a townswoman by taste and habit, would have preferred a
throng of human faces, any day, to the sublime emptiness around them.
Hot, breathless, and in a ferment of anxiety, she sank gratefully on
to the nearest rock and looked up at her companion; but the light on
his face checked her ever-ready tongue. She liked the boy. He was
more than "a mere he-thing," and that streak of the woman in him
appealed strongly to the masculine strain in herself. But protracted
silence irked her; and very soon anxiety goaded her into speech.
"Mr. Lenox, how long have you known Sir Mark Forsyth? Are you
acquaintances or friends?"
Maurice considered that point without removing his eyes from the
heather. "Rather more than acquaintances, I should say, and on the
way to becoming friends. I've known him two years on and off. But
I've never yet been to Wynchcombe Friars, his Hampshire place. He's
crazy about it. They say you never know the real Forsyth till you've
seen him there. I'm going there this autumn, to be converted from
Futurism and Experimental Art in general! At least that's his
notion. He's a splendid chap. Chockful of ideas. A bit
reactionary, some of them. He's dead against what we should call
industrial progress, and what he calls sacrificing the man to the
machine. They've got a great scheme on, he and his mother and
Macnair, for joining up all the scattered attempts at reviving
handicrafts and guilds----"
"Oh, bother their crafts and guilds!" Miss O'Neill broke in with
scant ceremony. "Sheer fads! Result of riches and idleness. _I_
want to know is he the kind of man to take up a girl violently--you
see how it's been--just to pass the time?"
"No!" Maurice rapped out the negative with unusual vehemence. "As a
matter of fact, I believe he intends to offer her his heart and his
title and all his worldly goods before we get back to them."
Miss O'Neill started visibly. "What--on a fortnight's acquaintance?"
"Yes. A trifle steep, isn't it? And, for a man in his position, a
wife's a rather important item."
"Something more than an amiable housekeeper--is that your meaning?"
Miss O'Neill rounded on him, a flash of temper in her eyes. "I
thought better of you, Mr. Lenox. But you're all alike in the grain.
A man in Sir Mark's position must have a beautiful figurehead for his
dinner-table: a graceful, accommodating doll, that he can hang with
jewels and silks and satins. But my Bel's no doll-woman, for all her
soft manners and sweet temper. No doubt he flatters himself that, in
a fortnight, he's read her from cover to cover: and he'll be telling
her, sure as fate, that he's the one man on earth to make her happy,
and think he's paying her the compliment of her life into the
bargain!"
Good-natured Maurice began to feel that Forsyth had been a trifle
inconsiderate saddling him with a virago whom he was quite at a loss
how to appease.
"Well--compliment or no, she's free to refuse him," he remarked
soothingly; "and after all, it's the natural thing."
Miss O'Neill pounced on the words almost before they were out. "_Of
course_ it's the natural thing for a man like Sir Mark--spoilt by his
mother, one can see with half an eye--to snatch at a beautiful woman.
And where does a girl's freedom come in when a man dazzles her brain
with extravagant lover's talk? Besides--he's rich. She's poor. It
almost amounts to bribery. I hate the whole thing. I came away for
her sake, to give her a chance of knowing him better, just in case--
But if it's true, what you say, I shall go straight down again----"
She sprang up from her rock and faced about; but Lenox, smilingly
determined, stood astride across the narrow path.
"Excuse me, Miss O'Neill, not if I can prevent it," he said.
"Forsyth's going to have his chance fair and square. Of course if
you're game for a free fight--well, come on!"
For a second she looked him up and down, a sudden flicker of humour
in her eyes. "I tackled a policeman once. A bigger fellow than you.
And he was very glad to get rid of me."
"I can well believe it," Maurice answered with becoming gravity.
"But look here, just consider, what earthly good would you do by
deferring the inevitable--say, twenty-four hours--and probably
annoying Miss Alison into the bargain?"
The last shot told. Harry let out her breath in a great sigh.
"Life's a bewildering business," she mused aloud. But common sense
told her he spoke truth; and she liked him none the less for backing
up his friend. "Very well, Mr. Lenox, I give it up. You evidently
have instructions from headquarters, and I'll stay here till you give
the word. But scenery bores me stiff; so please make yourself as
interesting as you know how."
"Right you are," said Maurice; and indicating her deserted rock he
flung himself on the heather at her feet in such a position that her
prosaic figure in its knitted coat and rough skirt should not intrude
upon his vision of the landscape. Then he proceeded, in his fluent
fashion, to enlarge on the subject uppermost in his mind--Sir Mark's
queer conviction that a wide-spread revival of handicrafts and guilds
would go far to solve the strike problem by restoring the creative
sense in labour and renewing the broken link between art and life----
For Sir Mark himself, at that moment, life held only one purpose, one
achievement worthy of serious consideration--the linking of his own
destiny with that of the girl who seemed capable of maintaining
indefinitely her graceful pose of contemplation. It was a pose that
revealed to admirable advantage the long lines of her figure and the
beauty of her small head with its close-fitting coils of hair. Her
discarded hat lay on the heather at her feet. Close to her chosen
rock sprang a young birch, its supple grace a reflection of her own;
its drooping plumes, stirred by the breeze, dappling her blue dress
with tiny restless shadows.
Was it some day-dream that so held her, Mark wondered, or pure
consideration for the trout that he had presumably come out to catch?
Either way, her silence and abstraction had the effect of so
intensifying his own emotion that speech seemed desecration.
Besides--he had spoken already. Could there really be any need to
tell her again how swiftly and strangely she had swept him from his
moorings, so that life held nothing, momentarily, but his glorified
vision of herself? Last night the sound of her voice, echoing his
own confession, had silenced, for good, the whispers of prudence that
strove to curb his impetuous spirit, counselling delay. If only that
confounded Miss O'Neill had given him a chance while the glamour was
on them both, the whole thing might have seemed less egregiously
precipitate. Now that he had schemed for half an hour's privacy; now
that she sat there, only a few yards away, seemingly unaware of his
existence, a shiver of uncertainty chilled him. A fortnight ago
to-day, while he and Maurice were rambling in search of subjects, he
had beheld her for the first time. For him that fortnight was an
indefinable age. For her it might simply be fourteen days----
But this sort of havering would never do. He was a strong man, not
unschooled in suffering, but little used to being thwarted in his
desire. And he did not seriously expect to be thwarted now.
Deliberately he laid aside his fishing tackle, and leaning on one
elbow looked up at the girl, whose rock was set a little higher along
the sloping bank of the stream. For a few seconds he took his fill
of her, from the coronet of her hair to the seductive curves of her
mouth and chin that made such tender atonement for the cool
directness of her eyes.
Still she did not move; but her lips parted in a small sigh, and the
spell was broken. Mark rose and planted himself before her.
"Miss Alison," he began--and could get no further.
"Well?" she asked with that distracting lift of her lashes. "Is the
precious tackle out of gear?"
Her coolness almost angered him and gave him sudden command of his
tongue. "_Tackle_? D'you really suppose I came out here to catch
trout?"
"You said so last night. And you seemed to be making elaborate
arrangements----"
"So I was--to get half an hour alone with you," he announced bluntly,
and saw the ghost of a blush creep up under her skin. He wanted
simply to take her in his arms without more ado. Instead, he sat
down close to the rock, plunged his hands in the heather, and leaned
towards her.
"I was trying to tell you last night. Didn't you understand?"
"N-no. I thought the music--and the sentiment had rather carried you
away."
"It was _you_ who carried me away. The music was a kind of
safety-valve, that's all." He leaned still nearer. "Bel--is there a
ghost of a chance for me? Is it sheer conceit and impertinence on my
part to ask--so soon?"
"No--oh no." And suddenly she covered her face as if the intensity
of his gaze affected her like strong sunlight.
He was silent a moment, watching her and crushing the heather in his
strong fingers. Then, very gently, he laid a hand on her knee.
"What is it? Tell me. I must know."
At that she dropped her hands. By chance or design, one of them fell
on his own and rested there. The light contact sent electric thrills
up his arm.
"That's just it," she said with her slow smile. "You must know. But
we neither of us do--yet. It's been a wonderful fortnight. And if I
haven't travelled quite so fast or so far as you, that doesn't
mean----"
"Of course it doesn't. I'm not such a conceited ass as to suppose
you could fall in love with me at sight. But now I've spoken--isn't
there any response?"
"Haven't you felt any?" she asked lightly, and the hand that rested
on his moved in a just perceptible caress.
"For God's sake don't play with me!" he broke out, half angry again.
"I'm in deadly earnest."
"I know. That's just why one of us must try to keep a cool head."
"Nonsense! You're simply fencing. And you haven't answered my
question."
"I'm trying to. But I'm half afraid ... to let myself go.
No--don't!" She warded him off with a gesture, but deliberately
replaced her hand over his. "It's too sudden altogether. Wouldn't
it be wiser--for both of us--to wait a little? You don't really know
me one bit."
He bowed his head and kissed the fingers that covered his own. "I
know I love you," he said simply, his deep voice low and controlled.
"And if you can say the same, that's enough for me. The rest will be
an enchanted voyage of discovery."
"Voyages of discovery are rather risky things," she reminded him.
"And sometimes--they end in smoke. You see, you're not just any one.
I'm outside your world; and--your mother doesn't like me."
"Nonsense," he said again, with less conviction than before.
"It isn't. I'm sure she wants you to marry Miss Melrose. And I
thought at first--you seem very intimate."
"Naturally. Our intimacy began when she was eight and I was twelve."
He spoke looking out across the stream. Something in him winced at
her allusion to Sheila in that connection. But it was only fair to
her to explain things; and he forced himself to proceed. "Her people
are our nearest neighbours in Hampshire. Her mother's the sort of
person who subsists chiefly on fads and philanthropy--the kind of
philanthropy that makes you abominate charity and all its works.
When we lost... Ailsa, my little sister, Mother sort of annexed
Sheila, unofficially. But that doesn't imply--that she expects me to
do likewise. We're devoted to her--both of us. She's a splendid
little person;" he turned now and spoke with greater naturalness and
warmth. "Not very easy to know. But _real_, right through. You're
bound to love her. There--are you satisfied?" Without warning he
slipped an arm round her. "Will you give me my answer now?"
He felt her yield under pressure of his hand: then, with a sudden
enchanting simplicity, she lifted her face to his----
Presently she sighed; pushed him from her a little and looked
steadily into his eyes--blue, like her own, but a deeper, tenderer
shade, shot through with fine radiations of orange. Hers seemed
still to hold a question. His were purely exultant.
"Darling, we've done it now," he said under his breath.
"Yes. I suppose--we have," she answered in the same key.
"Suppose? You're not going back on things, after _that_. Next
question is--when will you marry me? Next week?"
Her flush, that had died down, mounted again, clear carmine,
beautiful to see. "Oh, Mark! Give me a few minutes to realise it
all. You're so impatient. Such a boy. You make me feel ... ages
old----"
"Look here, I can't have you talking that sort of rot," he protested;
incorrigibly blunt, even in love. "It's morbid sentimentalism. You
see, I'm the son of a mother who doesn't know how to feel old at
fifty. 'Boy,' indeed! You're a mere child yourself--the dearest in
creation."
"No--no. I'm _not_ a child." Her emphatic protest rang true.
"Perhaps your mother has kept the bloom on life. Mine has never had
any bloom on it, worth mentioning. I was reared in a groove; a very
virtuous groove; and ... I didn't fit. I wanted to feel and know and
live; to be something more than a vegetable in a Wiltshire village.
I knew I had talents of sorts; and I felt, if I could only get away
and have a fair chance, I might achieve something worth doing, or, at
least ... meet a man worth marrying." She spoke looking away from
him across the sun-splashed water. "The only brother I cared about
went off to the ends of the earth before he was twenty. If I'd been
old enough to go with him, I wouldn't be here now!"
"Poor darling!" He tightened his hold of her. "Dreadful
calamity--isn't it?--to be here now! But didn't your mother
understand you--help you?"
"Poor little mother. She did her best. My unconventional streak
comes from her side. But she's a very tame edition; watered down by
an early marriage with father, who's as conventional as a high-road,
but unfortunately not as broad! Privately, I think she was half
proud of me and half terrified of what I might do next, like the hen
in Hans Andersen. It was father's pharisaical attitude towards my
mild vagaries that made me worse, till at last I kicked clean over
the traces, demanded a reasonable allowance (to my amazement, I got
it), and went off to London, to take the world by storm."
"To Miss O'Neill?" Mark queried, a faint anxiety in his tone.
"Oh no. Harry's a fairly recent phase. I boarded with a friendly
family in the second-rate theatrical line. That was my chosen road
to achievement. But it didn't come off--worse luck!"
"Nor the man worth marrying?"
Her eyes lingered in his. "Not to any great extent! They were
rather a mixed lot. And everything seemed in league against me. I
made no headway anywhere. Still--it was experience. It was life.
One was too busy, either hoping or despairing, to be dull. Each new
phase seemed to be the discovery of a new kingdom, till you
found--you hadn't the key. There was the writing phase, the acting
phase, the American phase----"
"America? Why on earth----?"
"Oh, I don't know. The chance came. And the notion attracted me. A
bigger, fresher world; experience----"
"You seem mighty keen on experience," Mark struck in. "D'you mean
knowledge--or simply new sensations?"
She hesitated. "After all--new sensations are a form of knowledge.
The most interesting on earth. I'd go almost anywhere to discover
the feel of things----"
She stopped short, and Mark frowned into vacancy. For the first time
he caught himself wondering how old was she.
"_I_ should say better be an ignoramus than a mere connoisseur in
sensations," he remarked quietly. "But perhaps I missed your
meaning."
"Perhaps there wasn't any meaning to miss! I was talking--rather at
random." Then very lightly she leaned her head against his.
"Mark--dearest, don't look like that."
"Well, you mustn't talk like that," he said with decision. "How long
were you in America?"
"Eighteen months. Not very pleasant always. But it did me no end of
good. I even went home for a time, full of fine resolves. But the
poor things soon shrivelled up in father's atmosphere. Then--it was
Harry to the rescue."
"And now it's Mark!" With sudden fervour he caught her to him. "No
more 'phases' after this, my Bel. You shall have your freedom and
your chance. I'll make up to you, all I can, for the bad years.
Mother will love you----"
Bel shook her head. "She doesn't like me."
"Darling, she doesn't know you. Mother may have her cranks and
prejudices. But if there's one woman on earth she can be trusted to
love--it's my wife. I'll take you to her to-night."
"No--no. To-morrow. To-night--there's Harry. It'll be a blow. You
see, when I first came to her, I was so sick with everything, I swore
I'd never marry. She's jealous already----"
"Poor soul!" Mark said tenderly. "But I'm jealous too. I can't
share you with Miss O'Neill. If it comes to a tug, you'll have to
choose between us."
"I have chosen." She spoke with genuine fervour; and leaning against
him, she closed her eyes. So seen, her face looked years younger and
of a saint-like purity. Doubts and qualms seemed sacrilege. Without
a word he kissed her lowered lids, and found, to his surprise, that
her lashes were wet.