"So it was the Secret Service man who saved your life," said Averil,
with flushed cheeks. "Really, Dick, how splendid of him!"
"Finest chap I ever saw!" declared Derrick. "He looked about eight feet
high in native dress. I shall have to find that man some day, and tell
him what I think of him."
"Yes, indeed!" agreed Averil. "I expect, you know, it was really Colonel
Carlyon who sent him."
"Being too great a--strategist to advance himself," said Derrick.
"But he didn't know you were at the head of the Goorkhas," Averil
reminded him.
"Perhaps not," said Derrick. "But he knew I was there. And, putting me
out of the question altogether, what can you think of an officer who
will coolly leave a party of his men to be slaughtered like sheep in a
butcher's yard because the poor beggars happen to have got into a tight
place?"
Derrick spoke with strong indignation, and Averil was silent awhile.
Presently, however, she spoke again, slowly.
"I can't help thinking, Dick," she said, "that there is an explanation
somewhere. We ought not--it would not be fair--to say Colonel Carlyon
acted unworthily before he has had a chance of justifying himself."
There was justice in this remark. Derrick, who was lying at the girl's
feet on the hearthrug in the Rectory drawing-room, reached up a bony
hand and took possession of one of hers. For Averil had received him
with a warmer welcome than he had deemed possible in his most sanguine
moments, and he was very happy in consequence.
"All right," he said equably. "We'll shunt Carlyon for a bit, and talk
about ourselves. Shall we?"
Averil drew the bony hand on to her lap and looked at it critically.
"Poor old boy!" she said. "It is thin."
Derrick drew himself up to a sitting position. There was an air of
mastery about him as he raised a determined face to hers.
"Averil," he said suddenly, "you aren't going to send me to the
right-about again, are you?"
"Oh, don't let us squabble on your first night!'" said Averil hastily.
"Squabble!" the boy exclaimed, springing to his feet vigorously. "Do you
call--that--squabbling?"
Averil stood up, too, tall and straight, and slightly defiant.
"I don't want you to go away, Dick," she said, "if you can stay and
behave nicely. I thought it was horribly selfish of you to go off as you
did last winter. I think so still. If you had got killed, I should have
been very--very--"
"What?" demanded Derrick impatiently. "Sorry? Angry--what?"
"Angry," said Averil, with great decision. "I should never have forgiven
you. I am not sure that I shall, as it is."
Derrick uttered a sudden passionate laugh. Then abruptly his mood
changed. He held out his hands to her.
"Averil!" he said. "Averil! Can't you see how I want you--how I love
you? Why do you treat me like this? I've thought about you, dreamt about
you, day after day, night after night, ever since I went away. You
thought it beastly selfish of me to go. But it hasn't been such fun,
after all. All the weeks I was in hospital I felt sick for the sight of
you. It was worse than starvation. Can't you see what it is to me? Can't
you see that I--I worship you?"
"My dear Dick!" Averil put her hands into his, but her gesture was one
of restraint. "You mustn't talk so wildly," she said. "And, dear boy, do
try not to be quite so impulsive--so headstrong. You know, you--you--"
She broke off. Derrick, with a set jaw and burning eyes, was drawing her
to him, strongly, irresistibly.
"Derrick!" she said, with a flash of anger.
"I can't help it!" Derrick said passionately. "I've been counting on
this, living for this. Averil I--I--you can call me mad if you like,
but if you send me away again--I believe I shall shoot myself."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed Averil, half-angry, half-scornful.
He dropped her hands and stood quite still for the space of a few
seconds, his face white and twitching. And then, to her utter amazement,
he sank heavily into a chair and covered his face with his hands.
"Dick!" she ejaculated.
Silence followed the word, a breathless silence. Derrick sat perfectly
motionless, his fingers gripping his hair. At last Averil moved up to
him, a little frightened by his stillness, and very intensely
compassionate. She bent and touched his shoulder.
"Dick!" she said. "Dick! Don't!"
He stirred under her hand, but did not raise his head. "Get away,
Averil!" he muttered. "You don't understand."
And quite suddenly Averil was transported back to the far, receding
schooldays, when Derrick had got into trouble for smoking his first
cigar. The memory unconsciously influenced her speech.
"But, Dick," she said persuasively, "don't you think you are the least
bit in the world unreasonable? It's true I don't quite understand. We've
been such splendid chums all our lives, I really don't see why we should
begin to be anything different now. Besides, Dick"--there was appeal in
her voice--"I don't truly want to get married. It seems such a silly
thing to go and do when one had such really jolly times without. It does
spoil things so."
Derrick sat up. He was still absurdly boyish, despite his
four-and-twenty years.
"Look here, Averil!" he said doggedly. "If you won't have me, I'm not
going to hang about after you like a tame monkey. It's going to be one
thing or the other. I've made a big enough fool of myself over you. We
can't be chums, as you call it"--a passionate ring crept into his
voice--"when all the while you're holding me off at arm's length as if
I'd got the plague. So"--rising abruptly and facing her--"which is it to
be?"
Averil looked at him. His face was still white, but his lips were
sternly compressed. He was weak no longer. She was conscious of a sudden
thrill of admiration banishing her pity. After all, was he indeed only a
boy? He scarcely seemed so at that moment. He was, moreover, straight
and handsome despite his gaunt appearance.
"Answer me, Averil!" he said with determination.
But Averil had no answer ready. She stood silent.
Derrick laid his hand on her arm. It was a light touch, but somehow it
conveyed to her the fact that he was holding himself in with a tighter
rein than ever before.
"Don't torture me!" he said, speaking quickly, nervously. "Tell me
either to stay or--go!" His voice dropped on the last word, and for a
second Averil saw the torture on his face.
It was too much for her resolution. All her life she had been this boy's
chosen companion and confidante. She felt she could not turn from him
now in his distress, and deliberately break his heart. Yet for one
tumultuous second she battled with her impulse. Then--she yielded.
Somehow that look in Derrick's eyes compelled her.
She put her hands on his shoulders.
"Dick--stay!" she said.
His arms closed round her in a second. "You mean--" he said, under his
breath.
"Yes, Dick," she answered bravely, "I do mean. Dear boy, don't ever look
like that again! You have hurt me horribly."
Derrick turned her face up to his own and kissed her repeatedly and
passionately.
"You shall never regret it, my darling," he said. "You have turned my
world into a paradise. I will do the same for yours."
"It doesn't take much to make me happy," Averil said, leaning her
forehead against his shoulder. "I hope you will be a kind master, Dick,
and let me have my own way sometimes."
"Master?" scoffed Derrick, kissing her hair. "You know you can lead me
by the nose from world's end to world's end."
"I wonder," said Averil, with a little sigh. "Do you know, Dick, I'm not
quite sure of that."
"What!" said Derrick softly. "Not--quite--sure!"
"Not when you look as you did thirty seconds ago," Averil explained.
"Never mind, dear old boy! I'm glad you can look like that, though,
mind, you must never, never do it again if you live to be a hundred."
She looked up at him suddenly and clasped her hands behind his neck.
"You do love me, don't you, Dick?" she said.
"My darling, I worship you!" Derrick answered very solemnly.
And Averil drew his head down with a quivering smile and kissed him on
the lips.