The moonlight fell softly on Prudence's bright hair, touching the curls
lovingly with a wan brilliance that, paling their shining gold, added a
purer sheen to replace the beauty stolen by the night. Its light was
reflected in the blue depths of her eyes, eyes which took on the misty
darkness of the night sky so that the moonbeams felt at home therein and
lingered there confidingly. She leaned far out of the window, and the
fragrance of some early gloire de Dijon roses was wafted towards her on
the night breeze. A scent besides that of the roses stole up to her out
of the shadows--the scent of cigarette smoke, too close under her window
to suggest that the smoker was beyond the wall that shut off the garden
from the road. Prudence had watched the smoker enter the garden; she
watched him now throw away his cigarette among the flowers in one of the
borders as he advanced, and she heard his voice speaking softly to her
out of the gloom.
"Can't you come down?" he asked.
"Not unless you have come provided with a rope ladder," she replied as
softly.
"By Jove! I never thought of that. But you aren't locked in?"
"Not in the sense you mean. But locked doors would be trifles compared
with the opposition I should encounter if I attempted to join you. I'd
love to come out; but it's impossible."
"Is there any likelihood of our being overheard?" he asked with caution.
Prudence laughed quietly.
"Every likelihood," she answered. "I don't think I mind."
Steele stood under cover of the wall of the house. There were no lights
in the windows on that side; he had observed that on former occasions;
the library, where Mr Graynor sat every evening with William, faced the
other way.
"Then I'm going to run the risk and stay and talk with you," he said.
There was a strange intimacy in the situation that appealed to Prudence.
The adventure of the morning was as nothing compared with this stolen
interview. The insufficient light of the moon, and the distance which
divided them, added a touch of romance which she found pleasantly
exciting. To gaze down upon his upturned face and the uncertain outline
of his form below stirred her imagination; and the necessity for
caution, occasioning them to lower their voices to whispers, gave to the
utterance of the most trivial speech the flavour of intimate things.
She leaned down nearer to him.
"It's rather like Romeo and Juliet, isn't it?" she said.
"That ended rottenly," he replied, and laughed.
"So will this probably. What made you venture inside?"
"Isn't the reason obvious?" he returned. "I thought I had prepared you
for my visit at tea. It wasn't possible for us to say good-bye like
that. I'm sorry I got you into that mess."
"You didn't," Prudence assured him gently. "I knew how it would be.
I'm not regretting--anything. Stinging nettles cease to hurt when the
rash subsides. William is furious. We don't speak."
"That must be rather a relief for you."
She dimpled suddenly.
"He doesn't think so. When I apologise I am to be taken into favour
again. So, if he keeps to that, it is likely to be many years before we
interchange remarks."
"What an egregious ass he is," Steele commented. "Never mind that now.
We don't want to discuss him. I came to-night to beg a favour. Will
you write to me sometimes? ... and may I write? I don't want to lose
touch altogether."
"I can't promise that," she said, and fingered a rosebud below her
window, snapping its stem in nervous preoccupation. "All our letters go
into a box at the post office and are sorted before we receive them.
They would not allow me to correspond with you."
"Could we not arrange a little deception," he suggested, "by means of
which you could collect your own letters from the post office?"
But this idea did not commend itself to Prudence. She might be a rebel,
but she was honest, as courageous people usually are; anything in the
nature of deceit repelled her. "I should not care to do that," she
said. Her answer pleased Steele, although it defeated his purpose. He
had hoped to follow up this pleasant friendship begun under such unusual
and difficult conditions. It was the quality of conspiracy and quick
intimacy which made the acquaintance so extraordinarily attractive to
him. He was more than half in love with her already; and it galled him
to reflect that with his present uncertain prospects he was no match for
this daughter of a wealthy man. He could not have afforded to marry had
other conditions proved favourable, which they did not: Mr Graynor
would scarcely have welcomed a son-in-law with a salary of under two
hundred a year.
"I am afraid that settles it," he said in tones compounded of a mixture
of emotions. "I wonder if ever I'll have the good luck to meet you
again?"
This remark pulled Prudence up sharply. She had never considered the
question of his going out of her life; the suggestion thus forced on her
unwilling attention hurt. Abruptly the knowledge came to her that she
did not wish to lose his friendship. She had not considered the matter
of his going away seriously: she had taken it for granted that the
business that had brought him to Wortheton would bring him again; no
doubt had crossed her mind as to a further meeting--now that the doubt
was implanted a vague distress seized her, bringing with it a sense of
desolation. She realised that when he was gone she would miss him,
would feel doubly lonely by comparison with this bright break in the
monotony of her life.
"You'll come again?" she said quickly.
"It's possible," he answered, "but not in the least likely. It was just
a chance that brought me this time. The firm sends a more important man
as a rule. If I come again you will soon know of it. I shall make my
first appearance under your window. In the meanwhile you will quite
possibly have forgotten my existence."
"Amid the distractions of Wortheton!" Prudence retorted. "That's very
probable, isn't it?"
He laughed.
"I won't hear a word against Wortheton if it keeps your memory green,"
he returned.
"It fossilises memory," she answered. "Every little event that has ever
befallen is stamped on my mind in indelible colours--drab colours for
the unpleasant event, and brighter tints for the pleasant in comparison
with their different degrees of agreeableness."
"And this event?" he questioned. "These stolen moments? In what colour
is this event painted?"
"I'll tell you that when we meet again--perhaps," she answered.
"Oh please!" he persisted. "I want to know now."
Prudence laughed softly. He detected a slight nervousness in her mirth,
a quality of shyness that gratified his eager curiosity, conveying as it
did that the girl was not insensible of his influence and his unspoken
homage.
"You see," she said, and blushed warmly in the darkness as she leaned
down towards him, "it is all a confusion of splashes of moonlight and
brighter splashes of sunshine. There aren't any colours on the canvas
at all."
"I'm contented with that," he said... "a luminous impression! Your
fancy pleases me. My fancy in connexion with you will picture always a
rose-bowered window set in a grey stone wall--just a frame for you, with
your moonlit hair and eyes like beautiful stars. Always I shall see you
like that--inaccessible, while I stand below and gaze upward."
This extravagance led to further admissions. He managed very clearly to
convey to his silent listener that his feeling for her was of quite an
unusual quality, that he cared immensely, that he had no intention of
letting her drop out of his life. He wanted to see more of her and was
fully determined to do so. He made her realise that unless she
disclaimed a reciprocal liking he intended taking her silence for
acquiescence. He spoke so rapidly, and with so much concentrated
passion in his lowered tones, that Prudence only vaguely comprehended
all that his eager words attempted to convey. She was apprehensive of
discovery, and, rendered doubly nervous by this clandestine love-making
and the fear of interruption, could find no words in which to reply.
She wanted time to think: the whole situation flurried her; and her
heart was beating with a rapidity that made articulation difficult.
"Oh!" she said... "Oh! I didn't know... I didn't understand..."
"Well, you understand now," he answered. "Prudence, give me one word--
one kind word to carry away with me... dear!"
There followed a pause, during which her face showed dimly above him,
with eyes shadowed darkly in the wan light. She leaned towards him.
"Ssh! Good-bye--dear!" she called back softly. And the next thing he
realised, even as her words floated faintly down to his eager ears, was
that he was standing alone in the darkness, gazing up at the place where
she had stood and from whence she had vanished with startling and
unaccountable suddenness.
Later Steele walked back to the quaint little hotel where he was
staying, confused by the hurried sweetness of her farewell as she
withdrew from her position at the window with a caution that suggested
unseen interruption. He had stepped forward with noiseless haste to
secure a rose which fell from her window, and carrying it with him, made
his way silently out of the garden. He was never certain whether the
falling of the rose had been accidental, or whether Prudence had dropped
it for him as a token and a reminder; but because her hand had gathered
it, he lifted it in the moonlight and touched its cool fragrance
reverently with his lips. The act made him consciously her lover. The
rose became a symbol--a bond between him and her. Just so long as he
kept it he knew that her influence would dominate his life, and his
memory of her retain its warm and vital quality, so that she would
remain a beautiful inspiration amid the sordid worries of uncongenial
things.