"It was in this way," said Fanny. "Mr. Brinsley brought a letter of
introduction from Cousin Frank. You know who Frank is, don't you?
He's the brother of the three Miss Miners."
"Of course," nodded Lawrence. "Everybody knows Frank Miner."
"And he knows everybody. But he didn't say much in his note, and
Cordelia has written to him since, because she wants to know all
about Mr. Brinsley, and it appears that Frank has only met him once
or twice at a club, and doesn't know anything about him. However, it
doesn't matter! The main point is that he called the day after we
got here, and in twenty-four hours we were all in love with him."
"Please don't include yourself," said Lawrence, his delicate face
betraying that he winced.
"I will include myself, because it's true," answered Fanny, very much
in earnest. "I shouldn't put it just in that way about myself,
perhaps,--but I took a fancy to him, and I took him to drive, and I
found that he could drive quite as well as I, and we went out riding
with a party, and he rides like an angel--he really does--it's
divine. And then I tried him in the boat, and he was good at that.
So I began to like him very much."
"They're all excellent reasons for liking a man," observed Lawrence,
with a little contempt.
"Don't scoff at things you can't do yourself," said Fanny, severely.
"It's not in good taste. Besides, I don't care. All women admire
men who are stronger, and quicker, and better with their hands than
other men. One always thinks they must be braver, too."
"Yes, that's true," assented Lawrence, seeking to retrieve himself by
meekness.
"And they generally are. It takes courage to ride well, and it needs
nerve to handle a boat in a squall. I don't mean to say that you
can't be brave if you don't know how to do those things. That would
be nonsense. You--for instance--you could learn. Only nobody has
ever taught you anything, and you're getting old."
Lawrence laughed outright, and forgot his ill-humour in a moment.
"Oh--I don't mean really old," said Fanny, immediately. "I only mean
that one ought to learn when one is a child, as I did. Then it's no
trouble, you see--and one never forgets. Now, Mr. Brinsley began
young--"
"Yes," interrupted the young man, "I should say so. I'm sorry I
didn't."
"So am I. It would have been so nice to do things--"
She stopped abruptly, and pulled up a blade of rank grass, which she
proceeded to twist thoughtfully round her finger.
"I shouldn't like you to think I was a flirt," she said, suddenly
turning her grey eyes upon him.
He met her glance curiously, being considerably surprised by her
remark.
"Because I sometimes think I am, myself," she added, still looking at
him. "Do you think so?" she asked earnestly. "What is a flirt,
anyway?"
"A woman who draws a man on for the pleasure of breaking his heart, I
suppose," answered Lawrence, keeping his eyes fixed intently on hers.
"Then I'm only half a flirt," said Fanny, "because I only draw a man
on, without meaning to break anybody's heart."
"Don't," said Lawrence. "It hurts, you know."
"I wonder--" The young girl laughed a little, and turned away from
his eyes.
"What?"
"Whether it really hurts." She bit the end of the grass blade, and
slowly tore it with her teeth, looking dreamily across the brook.
"Don't try it, at all events."
"Mr. Brinsley doesn't seem to mind."
"Brinsley isn't a human being," said Lawrence, savagely.
"What is he, then?"
"A fraud--of some sort. I don't care. I hate him!"
"You're hard on Mr. Brinsley," observed Fanny, slowly, and watching
her companion sideways.
"Considering what you've been saying about him--"
"I said nothing about him except that I began by liking him awfully."
"Well--you left the rest to my imagination. I did as well as I
could. If you didn't hate him yourself, you'd hardly have been
telling me all this, would you?"
"Oh--I don't know. I might be going to ask your advice about--about
him."
"Take him out in your boat and drown him," suggested Lawrence.
"That's my advice about him."
"What has he done to you, Mr. Lawrence?" enquired Fanny, gravely.
"Why do you hate him so?"
"Why? It's plain enough, it seems to me--plain as a--what do you
call the thing?"
"Plain as a marlinespike, you mean. Only it isn't. I want to know
two things. Do you think I'm a flirt? And why do you want me to
murder poor, innocent Mr. Brinsley? Do you mind answering?"
Lawrence's dark eyes began to gleam angrily. He bit his pipe and
pulled at it, though it had gone out; then he took it from his lips
and answered deliberately.
"If you are a flirt, Miss Trehearne, I don't wish Brinsley any
further damage. He'll do very well in your hands, I'm sure. I have
no anxiety."
"I wouldn't hurt a fly," said Fanny. "If I liked the fly," she added.
"I believe the spider said something to the same effect, when he
invited the fly into his parlour."
At this a dark flush rose in the girl's cheeks.
"You're rude, Mr. Lawrence," she said.
"I'm sorry, Miss Trehearne--but you're unkind, so you'll please to
excuse me."
Instead of flushing, as she did, Lawrence turned slowly pale, as was
his nature.
"Even if I were,--but I'm not,--that's no reason why you should be
rude."
"I didn't mean to be rude," answered Lawrence. "I don't see what I
said that was so very dreadful."
"It was much worse than anything I said," retorted Fanny, biting her
blade of grass again. "Because I didn't say anything at all, you
know. Oh, well--if you'll say you're sorry, we'll bury it."
"I'm sorry," said Lawrence, without the least show of contrition.
"I was going to tell you such lots of things about myself," said the
young girl. "You've made me forget them all. What was I talking
about when we began to fight? I began by saying that I liked you,
and you've been horrid ever since. I won't say that again, at all
events."
"Excuse me--you began by saying that you'd liked Brinsley--liked him
awfully, you said. It must have been awful--anything connected with
Brinsley is necessarily awful."
"There you go again. Don't bolt so--it makes bad running. I told
you why I'd liked him so much at first, and you admitted that it was
natural. Do you remember that? Well--that isn't all. After I liked
him, I began to care for him. I told you that, too. Horrid of me,
wasn't it?"
"Horrid!"
"I wish you wouldn't agree with me all the time!" exclaimed Fanny,
impatiently. "You know I really did care--a little. And then one
day in the catboat, he asked me--" She stopped and looked at Lawrence.
"To marry you? Why don't you say it? It wouldn't surprise me a bit."
"No," said Fanny, slowly, "he didn't ask me to marry him."
"In Heaven's name, what did he ask you?" enquired Lawrence,
exasperated to impatience.
"Oh--I don't know. It was something about the channel between Bar
and Sheep, I believe. Nothing very important, anyway. I'm not sure
that I could remember, if I tried."
"Then--excuse me, but what's the point?"
"Oh--I know!" exclaimed Fanny, as though suddenly recollecting
something. "Not that it matters much, but I like to be accurate. It
was about the bell buoy off Sheep Porcupine. You know, I showed it
to you the other day. Well--I told him how it had been carried away
in a storm some time ago, and that this was a new one. And the next
day I heard him telling Augusta all about it, as though he had known
before, you see."
"Well--that wasn't exactly a crime," observed Lawrence, who could not
understand at all. "You'd told him--"
"Yes, but he said he remembered the old one. That was impossible, as
he hadn't known anything about it. It was a little slip, but it made
me open my eyes and watch him. I used to think he was perfection
until then."
"Oh, I see! That was when you first began to find out that he wasn't
quite straight."
"Exactly. It made all the difference. I've caught him out more than
once since then. The other night, it was too much for me, when he
talked about the navy--so I promptly smashed him. He knows that I
know, now."
"I should think so. All the same--I don't mean to be rude this time,
Miss Trehearne--
"Be careful!"
"No--I'll risk it. Just now when you said he had 'asked you'--you
stopped short. You knew I should believe that you had been going to
say that he had asked you to marry him, didn't you?"
"Oh, I know! I couldn't help it--I believe I really am a flirt,
after all."
"I shouldn't like to believe it," said Lawrence, gravely.
"Nor I--either. I only wanted to see how you'd look if you thought
he'd offered himself just then."
"Just then! Do you mean to say that he has offered himself at any
other time?"
"Now you're rude again--only, I forgive you, because you don't know
that you are. It's rude to ask such questions--so I'll be polite and
refuse to answer. Not that there's any good reason why he shouldn't
have asked me to marry him, you know. The fact that you hate him
isn't a reason."
"But you do, yourself--"
"Not at all. At least, I haven't said so. I wish you'd listen to
me, Mr. Lawrence, instead of interrupting me with questions every
other moment. How in the world am I to make a confession, if you
won't let me say two words?"
"Are you going to make a confession?" asked Lawrence, incredulously.
"It's all chaff, you know!"
Fanny turned her cool eyes upon him instantly.
"There's a lot besides chaff," she said, in a very different tone.
"I can be in earnest, too--when I care."
She certainly emphasized the last three words in a way which might
have meant much, accompanied as they were by her steady look.
Lawrence felt himself growing a little pale again.
"Do you care?" he asked, and his voice shook perceptibly.
"For Mr. Brinsley?" enquired Fanny, instantly changing her tone again
and beginning to laugh.
"No--for me."
"For you! Oh dear, what a question!" She laughed outright.
Lawrence leaned down and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against
the toe of his heavy walking-shoe without saying a word. Then he put
the pipe into his pocket. She watched him.
"You've no right to be angry this time," she said. "But you are."
The young man faced her quietly and waited a moment before he spoke.
"You're playing with me," he said, calmly and without emphasis, as
stating a fact.
"Of course I am!" laughed Fanny Trehearne. "What did you expect?
But I'm sorry that you've found it out," she added, with appalling
cynicism. "It won't be fun any more."
"Unless we both play," suggested Lawrence, who had either recovered
his temper very quickly, or possessed a better control over it than
Fanny had supposed.
"All right!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's play--let us play.
That sounds solemn, somehow--I wonder why? Oh--of course--it's like
'Let us pray' in church."
Lawrence laughed drily.
"Let us pray beforehand, for the one who gets the worst of it," he
said. "He or she will need it. But I shall win at the game, you
know. That's a foregone conclusion."
Fanny was surprised and amused at the confidence he suddenly
affected--very unlike his habitual modesty and self-effacement.
"You seem pretty sure of yourself," she answered. "What shall the
forfeit be, as they say in the children's games?"
"To marry or not to marry, at the discretion of the winner. I think
that's fair, don't you? I shouldn't like to propose anything
serious--the head of Roger Brinsley in a charger, for instance."
Fanny laughed again.
"Yes, it's all very well!" she protested. "But of course the one who
loses will be in earnest, and the one who wins will not."
"He may be, by that time," suggested Lawrence.
"Don't say 'he,' so confidently--I mean to win. Besides, are we
starting fair? Of course I don't care an atom for you, but don't you
care for me--just a little?"
"I!" exclaimed Lawrence. "What an idea!" He laughed quite as
naturally as Fanny herself. "Do you think that a man in love would
propose such a game as we are talking about?" he asked.
"I'm sure I don't know what to think," answered the young girl.
"Perhaps I shall know in a day or two."
She looked down, quite grave again, and pulled a bit of fern from the
bank, and crushed it in her hand, and then smelled it.
"Don't you like sweet fern?" she asked, holding it out to him. "I
love it!"
"That's why you crush it, I suppose," said Lawrence.
"It doesn't smell sweet unless you do. Oh--I see! You were
beginning to play the game. Very well. Why should we lose time
about it? But I wish it were a little better defined. What is it
we're going to do? Won't you explain? I'm so stupid about these
things. Are we going to flirt for a bet?"
"What a speech!"
"Because it's a plain one? Is that why you object to it? After all,
that's what we said."
"We only said we'd play," answered Lawrence. "Whichever ends by
caring must agree to marry the winner, if required. But I'm afraid
the time is too short," he added, more gravely. "I've only a week
more."
"Only a week!" exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of disappointment. "Why, I
thought there was ever so much more. That isn't nearly time enough."
"We must play faster--and hope for 'situations,' as they call them on
the stage."
"Oh--the situation is bad enough, as it is," answered the young girl,
with a change of manner that surprised her companion. "If you only
knew!"
"Was that what you were going to tell me about?" asked Lawrence,
quickly, and with renewed interest. "I thought you were making game
of me."
"That's the trouble! You'll never believe that I'm in earnest, now.
That's the worst of practical jokes. Come along! We must be going
home. The sun's behind the hill and ever so low, I'm sure. We
shan't get home before dusk. How sweet that fern smells! Give it
back to me, won't you?"
They rose and began to walk homeward in the warm shadow of the woods.
As before, Fanny went first along the narrow path, and Lawrence,
following close behind her, and watching the supple grace of her as
she moved, breathed in also the intoxicating perfume of the aromatic
sweet fern which she still carried in her hand.