MANOEUVERING
Everybody seemed to be there, either splashing about in the Atlantic or
playing ball on the beach or congregated along the sands observant of
the jolly, riotous scene sparkling under the magnificence of a cloudless
sky.
Hamil nodded to a few people as he sauntered toward the surf; he stopped
and spoke to his aunt and Colonel Vetchen, who informed him that
Virginia and Cuyp were somewhere together chastely embracing the ocean;
he nodded to old Classon who was toddling along the wet sands in a
costume which revealed considerable stomach; he saw Malcourt, knee-deep,
hovering around Shiela, yet missing nothing of what went on around him,
particularly wherever the swing of a bathing-skirt caught his quick,
handsome eyes.
Then Cecile stretched out an inviting hand to him from the water and he
caught it, and together they hurled themselves head first into the surf,
swimming side by side out to the raft.
"It's nice to see you again," said the girl. "Are you going to be
agreeable now and go about with us? There's a luncheon at two--your fair
friend Virginia Suydam has asked us, much to our surprise--but after
that I'm quite free if you've anything to propose."
She looked up at him, pink and fresh as a wet rose, balanced there on
the edge of the rocking raft.
"Anything to propose?" he repeated; "I don't know; there's scarcely
anything I wouldn't propose to you. So you're going to Virginia's
luncheon?"
"_I_ am; Shiela won't." She frowned. "It's just as it was two years ago
when Louis Malcourt tagged after her every second. It's stupid, but we
can't count on them any more."
"Does--does Malcourt--"
"Tag after Shiela? Haven't you seen it? You've been too busy to notice.
I wish you wouldn't work every minute. There was the jolliest sort of a
dance at the O'Haras' last night--while you were fast asleep. I know you
were because old Jonas told mother you had fallen asleep in your chair
with your head among a pile of blue-prints. On my way to the dance I
wanted to go in and tie one of Shiela's cunning little lace morning caps
under your chin, but Jessie wouldn't go with me. They're perfectly sweet
and madly fashionable--these little Louis XVI caps. I'll show you one
some day."
For a few moments the girl rattled on capriciously, swinging her
stockinged legs in the smooth green swells that rose above her knees
along the raft's edge; and he sat silent beside her, half-listening,
half-preoccupied, his eyes instinctively searching the water's edge
beyond.
"I--hadn't noticed that Louis Malcourt was so devoted to your sister,"
he said.
Cecile looked up quickly, but detected only amiable indifference in the
young fellow's face.
"They're-always together; _elle s'affiche à la fin_!" she said
impatiently. "Shiela was only eighteen before; she's twenty now, and
old enough to know whether she wants to marry a man like that or not."
Hamil glanced around at her incredulously. "Marry Malcourt?"
But Cecile went on headlong in the wake of her own ideas.
"He's a sort of a relative; we've always known him. He and Gray used to
go camping in Maine and he often spent months in our house. But for two
years now, he's been comparatively busy--he's Mr. Portlaw's manager, you
know, and we've seen nothing of him--which was quite agreeable to me."
Hamil rose, unquiet. "I thought _you_ were rather impressed by Shiela,"
continued the girl. "I really did think so, Mr. Hamil."
"Your sister predicted that I'd lose my heart and senses to _you_" said
Hamil, laughing and reseating himself beside her.
"Have you?"
"Of course I have. Who could help it?"
The girl considered him smilingly.
"You're the nicest of men," she said. "If you hadn't been so busy I'm
certain we'd have had a desperate affair. But--as it is--and it makes me
perfectly furious--I have only the most ridiculously commonplace and
comfortable affection for you--the sort which prompts mother to send you
quinine and talcum powder--"
Balanced there side by side they fell to laughing.
"Sentiment? Yes," she said; "but oh! it's the kind that offers
witch-hazel and hot-water bottles to the best beloved! Mr. Hamil, why
can't we flirt comfortably like sensibly frivolous people!"
"I wish we could, Cecile."
"I wish so, too, Garret. No, that's too formal--Garry! There, that ends
our chances!"
"You're the jolliest family I ever knew," he said. "You can scarcely
understand how pleasant it has been for me to camp on the edges of your
fireside and feel the home-warmth a little--now and then--"
"Why do you remain so aloof then?"
"I don't mean to. But my heart is in this business of your father's--the
more deeply in because of his kindness--and your mother's--and for all
your sakes. You know I can scarcely realise it--I've been with you only
a month, and yet you've done so much for me--received me so simply, so
cordially--that the friendship seems to be of years instead of hours."
"That is the trouble," sighed Cecile; "you and I never had a chance to
be frivolous; I'm no more self-conscious with you than I am with Gray.
Tell me, why was Virginia Suydam so horrid to us at first?"
Hamil reddened. "You mustn't ask me to criticise my own kin," he said.
"No," she said, "you couldn't do that.... And Miss Suydam has been more
civil recently. It's a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I
suppose it's because--but I don't think I'll say it after all."
"It's nicer not to," said Hamil. They both knew perfectly well that
Virginia's advances were anything but disinterested. For, alas! even the
men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross
family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing
his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled
busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt
Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way. Besides Louis
Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt
who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since,
although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no
memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest
at Portlaw's huge camp on Luckless Lake.
* * * * *
"Virginia Suydam is rather an isolated girl," said Hamil thoughtfully.
"She lives alone; and it is not very gay for a woman alone in the world;
not the happiest sort of life.... Virginia has always been very friendly
to me--always. I hope you will find her amusing."
"I'm going to her luncheon," said Cecile calmly. "It's quite too absurd
for her to feel any more doubt about us socially than we feel about her.
That is why I am going. Shall we swim?"
He rose; she clasped his offered hand and sprang to her feet, ready for
the water again. But at that instant Malcourt's dark, handsome head
appeared on the crest of a surge close by, and the next moment that
young gentleman scrambled aboard the raft, breathing heavily.
"Hello, Cecile!" he gasped; "Hello, Hamil! Shiela thought it must be
you, but I was sceptical. Whew! That isn't much of a swim; I must be out
of condition--"
"Late hours, cards, and highballs," observed Cecile scornfully. "You're
horridly smooth and fat, Louis."
Malcourt turned to Hamil.
"Glad to see you've emerged from your shell at last. The rumour is that
you're working too hard."
"There's no similar rumour concerning you," observed Cecile, who had
never made any pretence of liking Malcourt. "Please swim out to sea, if
you've nothing more interesting to tell us. I've just managed to decoy
Mr. Hamil here and I'd like to converse with him in peace."
Malcourt, arms folded, balanced himself easily on the raft's pitching
edge and glanced at her with that amiably bored expression
characteristic of him when rebuffed by a woman. On such occasions his
eyes resembled the half-closed orbs of a teased but patient cat; and
Cecile had once told him so.
"There's a pretty rumour afloat concerning your last night's performance
at the Beach Club," said the girl disdainfully. "A boy like you, making
himself conspicuous by his gambling!"
Malcourt winced, but as the girl had apparently heard nothing to his
discredit except about his gambling, he ventured an intelligent sidelong
glance at Hamil.
The latter looked at him inquiringly; Malcourt laughed.
"You haven't been to the Beach Club yet, have you, Hamil? I'll get you a
card if you like."
Cecile, furious, turned her back and went head first into the sea.
"Come on," said Hamil briefly, and followed her. Malcourt took to the
water leisurely, going out of his way to jeer at and splash Portlaw, who
was labouring like a grampus inshore; then he circled within observation
distance of several pretty girls, displayed his qualities as a swimmer
for their benefit, and finally struck out shoreward.
When he emerged from the surf he looked about for Shiela. She was
already half-way to the beach, walking with Cecile and Hamil toward the
pavilion; and, starting across the shallows to overtake her, he
suddenly came face to face with Virginia Suydam.
She was moving hip-deep out through the seething tide, slim, graceful, a
slight flush tinting the usual delicate pallor of her cheeks. Gussie
Vetchen bobbed nimbly about in the vicinity, very busy trying to look at
everybody and keep his balance at the same time. Miss Palliser was
talking to Cuyp.
As Malcourt waded past, he and Miss Suydam exchanged a pleasantly formal
greeting; and, for the second time, something in her casual gaze--the
steadiness of her pretty green-tinted eyes, perhaps--perhaps their
singular colour--interested him.
"You did not ask _me_ to your luncheon," he said gaily, as he passed her
through the foam.
"No, only petticoats, Mr. Malcourt. I am sorry that your--fiancée isn't
coming."
He halted, perfectly aware of the deliberate and insolent indiscretion
of her reply. Every line of her supple figure accented the listless,
disdainful intention. As he remained motionless she turned, bent
gracefully and laid her palms flat on the surface of the water, then
looked idly over her shoulder at him.
He waded back close to her, she watching him advance without apparent
interest--but watching him nevertheless.
"Have you heard that anybody and myself are supposed to be engaged?" he
asked.
"No," she replied coolly; "have you?"
A dark flush mantled his face and he choked.
For a moment they stood so; her brows were raised a trifle.
"Well?" she asked at last. "Have I made you _very_ angry, Mr. Malcourt?"
She waded out a step or two toward the surf, facing it. The rollers
breaking just beyond made her foothold precarious; twice she nearly lost
her balance; the third time he caught her hand to steady her and held it
as they faced the surges, swaying together.
She did not look again at him. They stood for a while unsteadily, her
hand in his grasp.
"Why on earth did you say such a thing to me?" he asked.
"I don't--know," she said simply; "I really don't, Mr. Malcourt."
And it was true; for their slight acquaintance warranted neither
badinage nor effrontery; and she did not understand the sudden impulse
toward provocation, unless it might be her contempt for Shiela Cardross.
And that was the doing of Mrs. Van Dieman.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking up at him, and after a moment, down at
their clasped hands. "Are we going to swim out, Mr. Malcourt?--or shall
we continue to pose as newly married for the benefit of the East Coast?"
"We'll sit in the sands," he said. "We'll probably find a lot of things
to say to each other." But he dropped her fingers--gently.
"Unless you care to join your--care to join Miss Cardross."
Even while she spoke she remained calmly amazed at the commonness of her
own speech, the astonishing surface streak of unsuspected vulgarity
which she was naïvely exhibiting to this man.
Vetchen came noisily splashing up to join them, but he found neither of
them very attentive to him as they walked slowly to the beach and up to
the dry, hot sand.
Virginia curled up in the sand; Malcourt extended himself full length at
her feet, clasped fingers supporting his head, smooth, sun-browned legs
crossed behind him; and he looked like a handsome and rather sulky boy
lying there, kicking up his heels insouciantly or stretching luxuriously
in the sun.
Vetchen, who had followed, began an interminable story on the usual
theme of his daughter, Mrs. Tom O'Hara, illustrating her beauty, her
importance, and the incidental importance of himself; and it was with
profound surprise and deep offence that he discovered that neither
Malcourt nor Miss Suydam were listening. Indeed, in brief undertones,
they had been carrying on a guarded conversation of their own all the
while; and presently little Vetchen took his leave with a hauteur quite
lost on those who had so unconsciously affronted him.
"Of course it is very civil of you to say you remember me," Virginia was
saying, "but I am perfectly aware you do not."
Malcourt insisted that he recalled their meeting at Portlaw's Adirondack
camp on Luckless Lake two years before, cudgelling his brains at the
same time to recollect seeing Virginia there and striving to remember
some corroborative incident. But all he could really recall was a young
and unhappily married woman to whom he had made violent love--and it was
even an effort for him to remember her name.
"How desperately you try!" observed Virginia, leisurely constructing a
little rampart of sand between them. "Listen to me, Mr. Malcourt"--she
raised her eyes, and again the hint of provocation in them preoccupied
him--"I remembered you, and I have sometimes hoped we might meet again.
Is that amends for the very bad taste I displayed in speaking of your
engagement before it has been announced?"
"I am not engaged--to be married," he said deliberately.
She looked at him steadily, and he sustained the strain of the gaze in
his own untroubled fashion.
"You are not engaged?"
"No."
She straightened up, resting her weight on one bare arm, then leisurely
laid her length on the burning sands and, face framed between her
fingers, considered him in silence.
In her attitude, in her very conversation with this man there was, for
her, a certain sense of abandonment; a mental renouncing of all that had
hitherto characterised her in her relations with an always formal world;
as though that were necessary to meet him on his own level.
Never before had she encountered the temptation, the opportunity, or the
person where the impulse to discard convention, conviction, training,
had so irresistibly presented itself. Nor could she understand it now;
yet she was aware, instinctively, that she was on the verge of the
temptation and the opportunity; that there existed a subtle something in
this man, in herself, that tempted to conventional relaxation. In all
her repressed, regulated, and self-suppressed career, all that had ever
been in her of latent daring, of feminine audacity, of caprice, of
perverse provocation, stirred in her now, quickening with the slightest
acceleration of her pulses.
Apparently a man of her own caste, yet she had never been so obscurely
stirred by a man of her own caste--had never instinctively divined in
other men the streak which this man, from the first interchange of
words, had brought out in her.
Aware of his attraction, hazily convinced that she had no confidence in
him, the curious temptation persisted and grew; and she felt very young
and very guilty like a small child consenting to parley with another
child whose society has been forbidden. And it seemed to her that
somehow she had already demeaned herself by the tentative toward a
common understanding with an intellect and principles of a grade
inferior to her own.
"That was a very pretty woman you were so devoted to in the
Adirondacks," she said.
He recalled the incident with a pleasant frankness which left her
unconvinced.
Suddenly it came over her that she had had enough of him--more than was
good for her, and she sat up straight, primly retying her neckerchief.
"To-morrow?" he was saying, too civilly; but on her way to the pavilion
she could not remember what she had replied, or how she had rid herself
of him.
Inside the pavilion she saw Hamil and Shiela Cardross, already dressed,
watching the lively occupants of the swimming-pool; and she exchanged a
handshake with the former and a formal nod with the latter.
"Garret, your aunt is worrying because somebody told her that there are
snakes in the district where you are at work. Come in some evening and
reassure her." And to Shiela: "So sorry you cannot come to my luncheon,
Miss Cardross.--You _are_ Miss Cardross, aren't you? I've been told
otherwise."
Hamil looked up, pale and astounded; but Shiela answered, undisturbed:
"My sister Cecile is the younger; yes, I am Miss Cardross."
And Hamil realised there had been two ways of interpreting Virginia's
question, and he reddened, suddenly appalled at his own knowledge and at
his hasty and gross conclusions.
If Shiela noticed the quick changes in his face she did not appear to,
nor the curious glance that Virginia cast at him.
"_So_ sorry," said Miss Suydam again, "for if you are going to be so
much engaged to-day you will no doubt also miss the tea for that pretty
Mrs. Ascott."
"No," said Shiela, "I wouldn't think of missing that." And carelessly to
Hamil: "As you and I have nothing on hand to-day, I'll take you over to
meet Mrs. Ascott if you like."
Which was a notice to Virginia that Miss Cardross had declined her
luncheon from deliberate disinclination.
Hamil, vaguely conscious that all was not as agreeable as the surface of
things indicated, said cordially that he'd be very glad to go anywhere
with Shiela to meet anybody, adding to Virginia that he'd heard of Mrs.
Ascott but could not remember when or where.
"Probably you've heard of her often enough from Louis Malcourt," said
Virginia. "He and I were just recalling his frenzied devotion to her in
the Adirondacks; that," she added smilingly to Shiela, "was before Mrs.
Ascott got her divorce from her miserable little French count and
resumed her own name. She was the most engaging creature when Mr.
Malcourt and I met her two years ago."
Shiela, who had been listening with head partly averted and grave eyes
following the antics of the divers in the pool, turned slowly and
encountered Virginia's smile with a straight, cold gaze of utter
distrust.
Nothing was said for a moment; then Virginia spoke smilingly again to
Hamil concerning his aunt's uneasiness, turned toward Shiela, exchanged
formal adieux with her, and walked on toward her dressing-room and
shower. Hamil and Miss Cardross turned the other way.
When Shiela was seated in her double wheel-chair with Hamil beside her,
she looked up through her veil unsmiling into his serious face.
"Did you notice anything particularly impertinent in Miss Suydam's
question?" she asked quietly.
"What question?"
"When she asked me whether I was Miss Cardross."
The slow colour again burned his bronzed skin. He made no reply, nor did
she await any after a silent consideration of his troubled face.
"Where did you hear about me?" she asked.
She had partly turned in her seat, resting both gloved hands on the
crook of her folded sunshade, and leaning a little toward him.
"Don't ask me," he said; "whatever I heard I heard unwillingly--"
"You _have_ heard?"
He did not answer.
The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. On the road they met
Mrs. Cardross and Jessie Carrick driving to a luncheon; later, Gray
passed in his motor with his father.
"I have an idea that you and I are to lunch alone," said Hamil as they
reached the house; and so it turned out, for Malcourt was going off
with Portlaw somewhere and Cecile was dressing for Virginia's luncheon.
"Did you care to go with me to the Ascott-O'Hara function?" asked
Shiela, pausing on the terrace. Her voice was listless, her face devoid
of animation.
"I don't care where I go if I may go with you," he said, with a new
accent of intention in his voice which did not escape her.
She went slowly up the stairs untying her long veil as she mounted.
Cecile in a bewildering hat and gown emerged upon the terrace before
Shiela reappeared, and found Hamil perched upon the coquina balustrade,
poring over a pocketful of blue-prints; and she said very sweetly:
"Good-bye, my elder brother. Will you promise to take the best of care
of our little sister Shiela while I'm away?"
"The very best," he said, sliding feet foremost to the terrace.
"Heavens, Cecile, you certainly are bewitching in those clothes!"
"It is what they were built for, brother," she said serenely. "Good-bye;
we won't shake hands on account of my gloves.... Do be nice to Shiela.
She isn't very gay these days--I don't know why. I believe she has
rather missed you."
Hamil tucked her into her chair, the darky pedalled off; then the young
man returned to the terrace where presently a table for two was brought
and luncheon announced as Shiela Cardross appeared.
Hamil displayed the healthy and undiscriminating appetite of a man who
is too busy mentally and physically to notice what he eats and drinks;
Shiela touched nothing except fruit. She lighted his cigarette for him
before the coffee, and took one herself, turning it thoughtfully over
and over between her delicately shaped fingers; but at a glance of
inquiry from him:
"No, I don't," she said; "it burns my tongue. Besides I may some day
require it as a novelty to distract me--so I'll wait."
She rose a moment later, and stood, distrait, looking out across the
sunlit world. He at her elbow, head bent, idly watched the smoke curling
upward from his cigarette.
Presently, as though moved by a common impulse, they turned together,
slowly traversed the terrace and the long pergola all crimson and white
with bougainvillia and jasmine, and entered the jungle road beyond the
courts where carved seats of coquina glimmered at intervals along the
avenue of oaks and palmettos and where stone-edged pools reflected the
golden green dusk of the semi-tropical foliage above.
On the edge of one of these basins the girl seated herself; without her
hat and gloves and in a gown which exposed throat and neck she always
looked younger and more slender to him, the delicate modelling of the
neck and its whiteness was accentuated by the silky growth of the brown
hair which close to the nape and brow was softly blond like a child's.
The frail, amber-tinted little dragon-flies of the South came hovering
over the lotus bloom that edged the basin; long, narrow-shaped
butterflies whose velvet-black wings were barred with brilliant stripes
of canary yellow fluttered across the forest aisle; now and then a giant
papilio sailed high under the arched foliage on tiger-striped wings of
chrome and black, or a superb butterfly in pearl white and malachite
green came flitting about the sparkle-berry bloom.
The girl nodded toward it. "That is a scarce butterfly here," she said.
"Gray would be excited. I wish we had his net here."
"It is the _Victorina_, isn't it?" he asked, watching the handsome,
nervous-winged creature which did not seem inclined to settle on the
white flowers.
"Yes, the _Victorina steneles_. Are you interested?"
"The generation I grew up with collected," he said. "I remember my
cabinet, and some of the names. But I never saw any fellows of this sort
in the North."
"Your memory is good?"
"Yes," he said, "for what I care about"--he looked up at her--"for those
I care about my memory is good, I never forget kindness--nor confidence
given--nor a fault forgiven."
She bent forward, elbows on knees, chin propped on both linked hands.
"Do you understand now," she said, "why I could not afford the
informality of our first meeting? What you have heard about me explains
why I can scarcely afford to discard convention, does it not, Mr.
Hamil?"
She went on, her white fingers now framing her face and softly indenting
the flushed skin:
"I don't know who has talked to you, or what you have heard; but I knew
by your expression--there at the swimming-pool--that you had heard
enough to embarrass you and--and hurt me very, very keenly."
"Calypso!" he broke out impulsively; but she shook her head. "Let _me_
tell you if it must be told, Mr. Hamil.... Father and mother are
dreadfully sensitive; I have only known about it for two years; two
years ago they told me--had to tell me.... Well--it still seems hazy and
incredible.... I was educated in a French convent--if you know what that
means. All my life I have been guarded--sheltered from knowledge of
evil; I am still unprepared to comprehend--... And I am still very
ignorant; I know that.... So you see how it was with me; a girl awakened
to such self-knowledge cannot grasp it entirely--cannot wholly convince
herself except at moments--at night. Sometimes--when a crisis
threatens--and one has lain awake long in the dark--"
She gathered her knees in her arms and stared at the patch of sunlight
that lay across the hem of her gown, leaving her feet shod in gold.
"I don't know how much difference it really makes to the world. I
suppose I shall learn--if people are to discuss me. How much difference
does it make, Mr. Hamil?"
"It makes none to me--"
"The world extends beyond your pleasant comradeship," she said. "How
does the world regard a woman of no origin--whose very name is a
charity--"
"Shiela!"
"W-what?" she said, trying to smile; and then slowly laid her head in
her hands, covering her face.
She had given way, very silently, for as he bent close to her he felt
the tearful aroma of her uneven breath--the feverish flush on cheek and
hand, the almost imperceptible tremor of her slender body--rather close
to him now.
When she had regained her composure, and her voice was under command,
she straightened up, face averted.
"You are quite perfect, Mr. Hamil; you have not hurt me with one
misguided and well-intended word. That is exactly as it should be
between us--must always be."
"Of course," he said slowly.
She nodded, still looking away from him. "Let us each enjoy our own
griefs unmolested. You have yours?"
"No, Shiela, I haven't any griefs."
"Come to me when you have; I shall not humiliate you with words to shame
your intelligence and my own. If you suffer you suffer; but it is well
to be near a friend--not _too_ near, Mr. Hamil."
"Not too near," he repeated.
"No; that is unendurable. The counter-irritant to grief is sanity, not
emotion. When a woman is a little frightened the presence of the
unafraid is what steadies her."
She looked over her shoulder into the water, reached down, broke off a
blossom of wild hyacinth, and, turning, drew it through the button-hole
of his coat.
"You certainly are very sweet to me," she said quietly. And, laughing a
little: "The entire family adores you with pills--and I've now decorated
you with the lovely curse of our Southern rivers. But--there are no such
things as weeds; a weed is only a miracle in the wrong place....
Well--shall we walk and moralise or remain here and make cat-cradle
conversation?... You are looking at me very solemnly."
"I was thinking--"
"What?"
"That, perhaps, I never before knew a girl as well as I know you."
"Not even Miss Suydam?"
"Lord, no! I never dreamed of knowing her--I mean her real self. You
understand, she and I have always taken each other for granted--never
with any genuine intimacy."
"Oh! And--this--ours--is genuine intimacy?"
"Is it not?"
For a moment her teeth worried the bright velvet of her lip, then
meeting his gaze:
"I mean to be--honest--with you," she said with a tremor in her voice;
but her regard wavered under his. "I mean to be," she repeated so low he
scarcely heard her. Then with a sudden animation a little strained:
"When this winter has become a memory let it be a happy one for you and
me. And by the same token you and I had better think about dressing. You
don't mind, do you, if I take you to meet Mrs. Ascott?--she was Countess
de Caldelis; it's taken her years to secure her divorce."
Hamil remembered the little dough-faced, shrimp-limbed count when he
first came over with the object of permitting somebody to support him
indefinitely so that later, in France, he could in turn support his
mistresses in the style to which they earnestly desired to become
accustomed.
And now the American girl who had been a countess was back, a little
wiser, a little harder, and more cynical, with some of the bloom rubbed
off, yet much of her superficial beauty remaining.
"Alida Ascott," murmured Shiela. "Jessie was a bridesmaid. Poor little
girl!--I'm glad she's free. There were no children," she said, looking
up at Hamil; "in that case a decent girl is justified! Don't you think
so?"
"Yes, I do," he said, smiling; "I'm not one of those who believe that
such separations threaten us with social disintegration."
"Nor I. Almost every normal woman desires to live decently. She has a
right to. All young girls are ignorant. If they begin with a dreadful
but innocent mistake does the safety of society require of them the
horror of lifelong degradation? Then the safety of such a society is not
worth the sacrifice. That is my opinion."
"That settles a long-vexed problem," he said, laughing at her
earnestness.
But she looked at him, unsmiling, while he spoke, hands clasped in her
lap, the fingers twisting and tightening till the rose-tinted nails
whitened.
* * * * *
Men have only a vague idea of women's ignorance; how naturally they are
inclined to respond to a man; how the dominating egotism of a man and
his confident professions and his demands confuse them; how deeply his
appeals for his own happiness stir them to pity.... They have heard of
love--and they do not know. If they ever dream of it it is not what they
have imagined when a man suddenly comes crashing through the barriers of
friendship and stuns them with an incoherent recital of his own desires.
And yet, in spite of the shock, it is with them instinctive to be kind.
No woman can endure an appeal unmoved; except for them there would be no
beggars; their charity is not a creed: it is the essence of them, the
beginning of all things for them--and the end.
* * * * *
The bantering smile had died out in Hamil's face; he sat very still,
interested, disturbed, and then wondering when his eyes caught the
restless manoeuvres of the little hands, constantly in motion,
interlacing, eloquent of the tension of self-suppression.
* * * * *
He thought: "It is a cowardly thing for an egotist with an egotist's
early and lively knowledge of the world and of himself to come
clamouring to a girl for charity. It _is_ true that almost any man can
make a young girl think she loves him if he is selfish enough to do it.
Is her ignorance a fault? All her training deprecates any acquisition of
worldly knowledge: it is not for her: her value is in her ignorance.
Then when she naturally makes some revolting mistake and attempts to
escape to decency and freedom once more there is a hue and a cry from
good folk and clergy. Divorce? It is a good thing--as the last resort.
And a woman need feel no responsibility for the sort of society that
would deprive a woman of the last refuge she has!"
He raised his eyes, curiously, in time to intercept hers.
"So--you did not know me after all, it seems," she said with a faint
smile. "You never suspected in me a _Vierge Rouge_, militant, champion
of her downtrodden sex, haranguing whomsoever would pay her the fee of
his attention. Did you?"
And as he made no reply: "Your inference is that I have had some unhappy
love affair--some perilously close escape from--unhappy matrimony." She
shrugged. "As though a girl could plead only a cause which concerned
herself.... Tell me what you are thinking?"
She had risen, and he stood up before her, fascinated.
"Tell me!" she insisted; "I shall not let you go until you do!"
"I was thinking about you."
"Please don't!... Are you doing it yet?" closely confronting him, hands
behind her.
"Yes, I am," he said, unable to keep his eyes from her, all her beauty
and youth and freshness troubling him, closing in upon him like subtle
fragrance in the golden forest dusk.
"Are you still thinking about me?"
"Yes."
The rare sweet laughter edged her lips, for an instant; then something
in his eyes checked her. Colour and laughter died out, leaving a pale
confused smile; and the straight gaze wavered, grew less direct, yet
lost not a shade of his expression which also had changed.
Neither spoke; and after a moment they turned away, walking not very
near together toward the house.
The sunshine and the open somehow brought relief and the delicate
constraint between them relaxed as they sauntered slowly into the house
where Shiela presently went away to dress for the Ascott function, and
Hamil sat down on the veranda for a while, then retired to undertake the
embellishment of his own person.