They went in, Curtis following.
In a room with a sanded floor that looked pleasantly homely to her
English eyes a meal was spread. The place and everything it contained
shone in the lamplight. She looked around her with a smile of pleasure,
notwithstanding her weariness. And then her eyes fell upon Curtis, and
found his fixed upon her.
He averted them instantly, but she had read their expression at a
glance--surprise and compassion--and her heart gave a curious little
throb of dismay.
She turned nevertheless without a pause to Mercer.
"Won't you introduce me to your friend?" she said.
"What?" said Mercer. "Oh, that's Curtis, my foreman. Curtis, this is my
wife."
Curtis bowed stiffly, but Sybil held out her hand.
"How nice everything looks!" she said. "I am sure we have you to thank
for it."
"Beelzebub and me," he said; and again she was struck by the utter lack
of animation in his voice.
He was a man of about forty, lean and brown, with an unmistakable air of
breeding about him that put her at her ease at once. His quiet manner
was a supreme contrast to Mercer's roughness. She was quite sure that he
was not colonial born.
He sat at table with them, and waited also, but he did not utter a word
except now and again in answer to some brief query from Mercer. When the
meal was over he cleared the table and disappeared.
She looked at Mercer in some surprise as the door closed upon him.
"He's a useful chap," Mercer said. "I'm sorry there isn't a woman in the
house, but you'll find Beelzebub better than a dozen. And this fellow is
always at hand for anything you may want in the evening."
"He is a gentleman," she said almost involuntarily.
Mercer looked at her.
"Do you object to having a gentleman to wait on you?" he asked curtly.
She did not quite understand his tone, but she was very far just then
from understanding the man himself. His question demanded no answer, and
she gave none.
After a moment she got up, and, conscious of an oppression in the
atmosphere, took off her hat and pushed back the hair from her face.
She knew that Mercer was watching her, felt his eyes upon her, and
wished intensely that he would speak, but he did not utter a word. There
seemed to her to be something stubborn in his silence, and it affected
her strangely.
For a while she stood also silent, then suddenly with a little smile she
looked across at him.
"Aren't you going to show me everything?" she said.
"Not to-night," he said. "I will show you your bedroom if you are too
tired to stay up any longer."
She considered the matter for a few seconds, then quietly crossed the
room to his side. She laid a hand that trembled slightly on his
shoulder.
"You have been very good to me," she said.
He stiffened at her touch.
"You had better go to bed," he said gruffly, and made as if he would
rise.
But she checked him with a dignity all her own.
"Wait, please; I want to speak to you."
"Not to thank me, I hope," he said.
"No, not to thank you." She paused an instant, and seemed to hesitate.
"I--I really want to ask you something," she said at length.
He reached up and removed her hand from his shoulder.
"Well?" he questioned.
"Don't hold me at arms' length!" she pleaded gently. "It makes things so
difficult."
"What is it you want to know?" he asked without relaxing.
She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage. Then
at length, her voice very low, she spoke.
"When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that
you--loved me?"
He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her
wrist. For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his
feet.
"Why do you want to know?" he demanded harshly.
She stood before him with bent head.
"Because," she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, "I am
lonely, and I have a very empty heart. And--and--if you love me it will
not frighten me to know it. It will only--make me--glad."
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying?" he
questioned.
"Yes," she said under her breath.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.
She raised her head impulsively, and, with a gesture most winning, most
confident, she stretched up her arms to him.
"Yes," she said. "I mean it! I mean it! I want--to be loved!"
His arms were close about her as she ended, and she uttered the last
words chokingly with her face against his breast. The effort had cost
her all her strength, and she clung to him panting, almost fainting,
while panic--wild, unreasoning panic--swept over her. What was this man
to whom she had thus impulsively given herself--this man whom all men
feared?
Nevertheless, she grew calmer at last, awaking to the fact that though
his hold was tense and passionate, he still retained his self-control.
She commanded herself, and turned her face upwards.
"Then you do love me?" she said tremulously.
His eyes shone into hers, red as the inner, intolerable glow of a
furnace. He did not attempt to make reply in words. He seemed at that
moment incapable of speech. He only bent and kissed her fiercely,
burningly, even brutally, upon the lips. And so she had her answer.