him. "I am pleased. Why didn't you tell me before?"
He laughed.
"Too absorbed in our game," he said, "to think of it. But I'm thinking
of it now. It makes a difference."
"I suppose it does. You'll be bursting forth into extravagances. Why
don't you keep a car?"
"Not yet," he said. "I want other things more urgently than that."
"What things?"
"I'll tell you to-night," he said, reddening.
"Yes," she said, her thoughts reverting to the discussion in the
pavilion. "During half a programme you'll find time enough to tell me a
good deal."
He glanced at her quickly.
"You didn't mind?" he said. "It's only the second half; and you'll be
tired. You won't want to dance much."
"Oh, indeed! Then what do you propose we shall do? If we don't dance
we might as well remain at home."
"We'll dance all you want to," he replied. "And we'll go for a stroll
along the sea wall. The weather is too hot for being inside. You shall
do what you like anyhow."
"You are always so amenable, George," she said, smiling. "And you
always get your own way in the end."
He smiled back at her with gay confidence.
"My luck's in," he replied. "The gods smile on me. I told you, Esme,
that I meant to win."
"I did my utmost to prevent you," she said.
"You understand co-operation, partner," he returned coolly. "That's
good enough for me."
She did not in the least understand the drift of his remarks, although
he believed he was tactfully preparing her for the declaration he
intended making that night. The last thing she anticipated was the
proposal which hovered continually in the forefront of Sinclair's mind.
He intended to put his luck to the test that evening, and felt fairly
confident as to the result. He had not the remotest suspicion of
possessing a rival. The road ahead, so far as he could see, was
perfectly clear.
Book 2--CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
It seemed to Sinclair that all the conditions that night favoured his
suit. It was a perfect evening, warm and still, with a brilliant moon
in a cloudless sky lighting the world with a luminous whiteness in which
everything was revealed scarcely less clearly than in the daylight. It
was a night for lovers, for the open air and solitude; it was not a
night for dancing. Sinclair, after the first dance, which he had with
Esme, was content to remain on the outskirts of the crowd and look on at
the rest. The floor was thronged with dancers. The lights, the music,
the colour of the moving crowd, appealed pleasantly to the senses. He
liked to watch; and every now and again he caught Esme's eye and won a
smile from her which cheered him. She appeared more than usually sweet
and kind that night, he thought.
The supper dance gave him the right to claim her again. In the interim
he had done a lot of thinking. He had his phrases turned and clear in
his mind. He knew very definitely what he wanted to say; he had
rehearsed it in his thoughts endless times. And he knew the right
atmosphere for the deliverance of those neatly turned sentences. He
wasn't going to fling the thing at her in a crowded room with numberless
people present. They would slip away together in the moonlight, and
stroll along the sea wall, against which the tiny waves broke softly,
running in and curling round the rocks, slapping musically against the
stonework which checked their further advance. He could tell her to the
accompaniment of the sea what he could not tell her in a hot and crowded
place. He wanted her to himself, away from these others.
It was not a difficult matter to persuade her to go with him. With the
finish of supper they left the hall together, crossed the moonlit
square, passed the Customs House, and so on to the sea wall, where the
quiet of the night was undisturbed; the swish of lapping water and the
low murmur of the sea were the only audible sounds in the surrounding
stillness.
He sat down beside her on a seat cut into the wall, and remained very
still, holding her hand and looking away to where the ships rode at
anchor far out on the silver sea. All the things which he had meant to
say to her, all his carefully planned sentences, eluded him; he felt
intensely, horribly nervous as he sat there in the growing silence,
holding her hand and looking out across the sea.
The girl sat and looked at the water also and forgot the man beside her.
Her thoughts were away from her present surroundings. She was thinking
of a sentence in one of Hallam's letters, while she sat silent in the
moonlight and saw the surface of the sea, as he had seen it from his
window while he wrote his letter to her, splashed with silver, broken up
and spread over it, a running liquid fire. It was here just as he had
described it--the same sea, the same moon,--with the waste of waters
intervening, dividing them in everything but thought. Sinclair had made
a mistake in taking her down to the sea.
"Esme!" he said presently, breaking the dragging silence, and pressing
her hand warmly in his strong grasp. "Esme!"
She turned her face to his, wholly unaware of the emotional stress under
which he laboured, but conscious of a quality in his voice which
rendered it unfamiliar. She saw his face close to hers, strained and
white in the moonlight, heard his breathing, hard and deep, like the
breathing of a man after violent exercise, and felt a faint surprise.
Dimly she began to realise that something unusual was happening; a look
of apprehension grew in her eyes.
He groped about after the sentences he had so carefully prepared, but
his mind was a blank. He could think of nothing effective to say; and
all the while her eyes, puzzled and questioning, were on his face.
"I love you," he mumbled presently, and took heart of grace when the
words were out and pulled her swiftly to him and kissed her. "Dear, I
love you with all my soul. I want to marry you."
Very gently she freed herself from his hold, and drew back, and sat
scrutinising him with ever growing distress. She liked him so well.
She hated having to hurt him; but it had never occurred to her that he
was in love with her. His affection had seemed so frankly friendly
hitherto.
"George, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know. I don't feel towards
you like that."
"Perhaps not now. But you will," he suggested. "I've been a little
abrupt. I ought to have waited."
"It wouldn't have made any difference," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. I'm very fond of you; but that's all," she added
convincingly.
"Well, look here! I'm not taking `No' right off like that. I'm going
to wait--"
"No," she interrupted quickly. "You mustn't think that. I shan't
change."
His face fell.
"You don't mean that there is some one else?" he asked.
For a moment or two she did not answer; then she nodded, without
speaking, and put out a hand and touched his arm.
"My dear," she said, "don't ask me questions. It is quite possible that
I shall never marry the man I love, but I cannot marry any one else.
I'm sorry. I didn't think you cared for me like that. I wish you
didn't. You must put me out of your thoughts."
He smiled faintly.
"That's not easily done," he replied. "Besides, I don't want to. Like
you, I may never marry the girl I love, but at least I cannot love any
one else. You are the one and only girl for me. I know. I'm not a
moonstruck boy. You'll let me keep your friendship, won't you? I won't
take advantage of it."
Tears came into her eyes. She had never liked him so much as in that
moment. The idea of giving up his friendship had not occurred to her
until he begged the privilege of retaining it. She did not want to give
it up. It was one of the pleasant things in her life.
"I want to continue being friends," she said. "I've grown to look on
you as a chum. That's how I've always thought of you. I want to be
friends--and to put this other thing out of my thoughts."
"Yes," he agreed. "We'll wipe that out. I made a mistake. You know,
dear,"--he felt for her hand and found it and held it tightly,--"I think
you are the sweetest girl in the world. I'll do anything for you. For
the present I'm feeling a bit sore, and just for a little while will
keep in the background. When I turn up again I'll be over the worst of
it, and you needn't fear that I shall make a fool of myself. We'll take
things up where we dropped them."
His defeat staggered Sinclair. He had been so sure that his luck was
in, so confident of the girl's affection, and unsuspicious of a possible
rival. He knew of no one with whom she was on terms of particular
intimacy. It never entered his thoughts to associate Hallam with her in
any way. He had not seen the development of that acquaintance. He
would have disapproved if he had. His naturally healthy mind held only
contempt for such weakness as Hallam's. He had summed up the man
briefly as a waster, and so disposed of him. That the man he despised
would one day have to be reckoned with, that he stood already in his
life, a menace to his happiness, an adverse influence, he was wholly
unaware. It was as well for his peace of mind that he remained in
ignorance for long after she had refused him of his rival's identity. A
rival who did not materialise left room for a tiny gleam of hope in his
heart.
"We'd better get back," he said, and rose from the seat. The beauty of
the night held no longer any attraction for him.
"I want to go home," she said, rising also. "I'm tired, and--I want to
go home."
He took her back to the hall and waited while she fetched her cloak.
She came out after a brief while, white faced and pensive, with a look
in her eyes as though she had been crying and had dashed the tears
hastily away.
He drew her hand through his arm and went with her out into the warm,
still night, along the deserted streets, up White's Road, traversing the
intervening byways to her own road almost in silence. At her door he
said good-night, and was turning away when she stopped him. Her heart
ached with pity for the sadness in his eyes.
"George, I'm sorry," she whispered, and tugged at his sleeve.
"That's all right," he answered, breaking away from her.
His voice sounded husky and a little gruff; he could not trust himself
to say more. She drew back, feeling troubled and inadequate, and stood
on the doorstep looking after him wistfully while he hurried down the
road in the moonlight, turned a corner and went out of her sight. She
had an impulse to run after him: she felt that she must say something,
do something, anything, to drive the pain and disappointment from his
look; it hurt her to let him go like that. But on reflection she knew
that she could do nothing; she must let him go.
She opened the door and went dejectedly inside and shut it quickly and
turned the key in the lock. Softly she crept upstairs to her room. The
blind was not drawn and the moonlight streamed in through the open
window and made any other illumination unnecessary.
She seated herself on the side of the bed and stared out at the black
shadow of the tree with its clusters of blossoms showing palely in the
white light. The household she supposed was asleep; everything was very
still and quiet. In the distance a dog barked incessantly: there was no
other sound to disturb the quiet of the night.
And then suddenly her door opened softly, and Rose came in in her
nightdress, and stood looking in sleepy surprise at the motionless
figure seated on the bed. She advanced to the bed and sat down beside
the girl and started a whispered conversation.
"I heard you come in," she said. "Jim's asleep. Have you had a good
time? Why don't you get to bed?"
"I forgot," Esme said, and began to unfasten her dress. Rose became
actively helpful.
"You are tired," she said. "What's the matter, dear?" She took the
girl's face between her hands and scrutinised it closely. "Esme, what
has happened? I wish you'd confide in me more."
The gentle reproach in her sister's voice, acting on her overwrought
nerves, caused the tears, so near the surface, to overflow. She dropped
her face on to Rose's shoulder and wept softly.
"Did George say anything to you to-night?" Rose asked, feeling
increasingly surprised. She had not wept when Jim proposed to her. She
remembered quite vividly that she had felt elated and very excited. She
had wanted to speak of it, to tell people. She could not fathom Esme's
mood.
"Is that the trouble, little goose?" she asked. "I knew--we all knew--
he meant to propose."
Whereupon Esme lifted her face and turned her tear-wet eyes on the
speaker in wide amaze.
"You knew!" she said. "Well, I didn't. I wish I had known. I thought
he was just a pal."
"A pal makes a good husband," Rose said thoughtfully, with the first
glimmer of doubt in her mind as to what answer her sister had returned.
"It's all right, isn't it?"
"It's all wrong," Esme answered ruefully, and dabbed at her eyes,--"just
as wrong as it can be. He's hurt; and I hate hurting him. I like him
so well. But I don't love him, Rose."
"You don't mean that you refused him?"
"Of course I mean that. I couldn't marry George."
"Why not?" Rose inquired blankly. When no response came to her
question, she caught her sister's arm and turned her towards her and
looked her steadily in the eyes.
"Tell me," she said quietly, "what there is between you and Paul Hallam?
You've changed since you knew him. You are more reserved, and you've
lost your high spirits. Who is Paul Hallam? And why does he write to
you? What is he to you?"
"He is just a friend," Esme answered.
"You love him," Rose said. "Do you think I am so dense as not to have
discovered that? You can trust me. I've not let Jim guess that I know
who your correspondent is. I've kept your counsel all the time; it's
your affair. But I think you might tell me."
Esme made a gesture that was at once a protest and an appeal. She sat
straighter, with her hands locked together in her lap, and stared out at
the moonlight unseeingly.
"I'd tell you if there was anything to tell," she said. "There isn't.
There has never been any talk of love between us ever. We are just good
friends."
"But you love him?" Rose persisted.
"Yes, I love him with all my heart. If I never see him again I will go
on loving him for the rest of my life."
In face of this Rose found nothing to say. The situation had got beyond
her. She felt increasingly curious. She wanted to know more about this
man; but Esme's manner baffled her. It was very evident that the
subject was distressing to the girl. There was something behind all
this of which she was in ignorance and which she felt she ought to be
told. She put one or two leading questions, but all she elicited was
the fact that Hallam was a man of independent means and no fixed abode.
That struck Rose as significant. If no duties engrossed him it was odd
that he should be satisfied to communicate with the girl only by post.
If he were sufficiently interested in her to keep up a correspondence,
why did he never come to see her?
"I would advise you to put Paul Hallam out of your thoughts," she said,
as an outcome of these reflections.
Then she kissed the girl, and got off the bed, and stood hesitating
between the bed and the door, sleepy, yet reluctant to leave her sister
alone.
"I hoped when I came in you would have a different story to tell me,"
she added. "Don't waste your life, thinking of a man who doesn't care
enough to want to come and see you. George is honest, and he loves you.
It's a pity to throw away a really good chance of happiness."
"To marry a man when you love another would not bring happiness," Esme
said, facing her sister in the moonlight, half undressed, and with her
hair falling about her shoulders and shading her face. "And it wouldn't
be fair to George."
"I expect George, like most people, would prefer half a loaf to no
bread," Rose answered. She opened the door. "Good-night, dear," she
said softly. "You go to sleep, and don't bother your head about any of
them. Men aren't worth half the tears women waste on them."
She returned to her own room, and stood for a moment or so looking
thoughtfully at the sleeping face of her husband, as he lay on his back
with arms spread wide across the bed, and a faint smile touched her
lips.
"It is all beauty and romance till we marry you," she mused. "Then we
discover that our demi-gods are just mere men. I wonder whether I would
have wept over you in the old days? ... I didn't anyway."
With which she got into bed and fell asleep.
But Esme did not sleep. She lay awake in the hot stuffy darkness of her
little room, which the kitchen stove abetted the sun in keeping hot by
day, while the warm slates of the too adjacent roof prevented any
appreciable decrease in temperature during the night--lay awake with her
mind filled with the thought of one man, and her imagination afire with
the memory of splashes of moonlight on a heaving mass of water that
stretched away endlessly and laved the moonlit, rock-strewn beach of a
little bay along the coast. Then, with the dawn, she fell asleep and
dreamed of the moonlight and of Paul Hallam.
Book 2--CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
From dreaming of Hallam at night and thinking of him in the daytime,
Esme arrived at a stage of almost incredible longing to see him again.
Letters did not satisfy her. She wanted to hear his voice speaking to
her, wanted to feel his presence, wanted, above all, to discover whether
the months had changed him, and if the lapse of time had decreased his
kindly feeling for her in any way. His letters no longer referred to
the possibility of meeting: they became more formal in tone as time went
by.
Soon after her tennis victory he wrote congratulating her on the event.
She had not written to him on the subject; his information had been
gleaned from the papers.
"I see you have been distinguishing yourself on the tennis courts," he
wrote. "Why do you leave me to discover the tale of your triumphs from
the newspapers? I prefer to hear of these things first hand. The news
furnished a further link with the old Zuurberg days. I recall how you
practised with Sinclair then. So you keep hold on the thread of that
acquaintance also?"
It occurred to Esme that this circumstance had displeased him. She
wished that she had written to him about the tournament and her part in
it. It did seem a little odd, when she came to think of it, that she
had suppressed this piece of news.
His letter was brief; and contained very little news of personal
interest. It read as though it had been written with an effort, and not
because he wanted to talk to her. A first fear that he might weary of
the correspondence gripped her. If he ceased to write she would be
desolate. His letters had come to mean so much to her: they caught her
away from the dreary routine of her days; they coloured life for her
warmly, kept her interest on the alert. Giving music lessons endlessly
through the long, hot days, returning to the stuffy overcrowded little
house where numberless small duties constantly demanded her attention,
was not an existence calculated to add romance to life. She had grown
weary of these things. The blood in her veins was astir like the sap in
the trees in the springtime. Love budded in her heart; it only awaited
a sign to burst into flower.
There were times when she fancied she read in Hallam's letters an
intimation that he wanted her. He spoke often of his loneliness, and
made reference to the happiness of their time together. But the months
went by and he did not come, and into his letters crept a new note of
reserve. Then followed a period of silence, after which he wrote from a
totally new address and begged for news of her. She allowed herself
twenty-four hours for reflection; then she replied to his letter in the
old friendly vein.
It was nearing the vacation, and she spoke of needing a holiday, and
told him that she could not decide where to go.
"I've thought of the Zuurberg," she wrote; "but your remark about
walking among tombstones sticks in my memory unpleasantly. I am afraid
it would be just that."
To which he replied from De Aar:
"There is a dignity about monuments which is soothing. My former
remarks were ill-considered. You might do worse than walk among
memories. Try the Zuurberg again, and tell me what you feel in respect
to resuscitated emotions. I would suggest that you came up here, but it
is a long journey and too hot for the time of the year."
Clearly he did not want her to join him. That thought wounded her. It
had been in her mind when she told him of her indecision that he might
propose meeting somewhere; that he made no such proposal seemed to prove
that he did not desire to see her. She felt vexed with herself for
having mentioned the subject to him. Once again the feeling of having
been snubbed by this man tormented her. In the old days it had caused
her indignation, but now it hurt.
The question of her holiday became a matter for debate in her mind. She
no longer desired to go to the Zuurberg; but the fear that he might read
in a change of plan her reason for deciding against it stiffened her
resolve to do what she did not want to do. The Zuurberg had not lost
its attraction for her; but it would be, she knew, haunted with
memories, where the ghosts of old pleasures would meet her at every
turn.
Fear of these ghosts prompted her to suggest taking the children with
her, a proposal which led to a wordy discussion as to ways and means.
Their father did not consider change necessary for them. Rose disputed
this; she wished them to go.
"Other people's children go away," she insisted finally on a softer
note. "If we can't afford a holiday for ourselves we ought to let them
have one. I think we might manage it, Jim, don't you?"
This direct appeal from her, to which he was unaccustomed, took him
aback. He was indeed surprised into acquiescing. In the end he spoke
as if it had been his wish all along. Later, when he left the room,
Rose looked across at her sister and smiled quietly.
"That was accomplished through the exercise of a little of the tact you
advocate," she said.
"It's worth it, don't you think?" Esme returned, and laughed. "All he
needs is management."
"Most men, I suppose, need that. You can't drive them in the direction
you wish, but if you can make them believe it's the way they want to go,
they start off at the gallop. Funny animals, aren't they?"
"Some of them are rather nice," Esme ventured.
"Some of them--perhaps. But you don't know; you aren't married. A girl
never really knows a man--knows him, I mean, for what he is underneath
the veneer of social pretences until she has lived with him. Then
little things peep out, selfishnesses--like ugly excrescences upon the
smooth surfaces you fancied were rather fine and noble. A man when he
is a lover is all chivalrous gentleness. Well, the chivalry is mostly
veneer. Jim always gives up his seat in a tram to a woman; when he is
in his own home, you may have noticed, he takes the most comfortable
chair. They have to relax sometimes, you see; it isn't possible to live
up to that level always. I'd rather a man were a bear outside the home
and considerate in it. There are such men, I suppose, but I haven't met
them."
"There are such men," Esme repeated, and thought of Hallam's lack of
social manner. She wondered whether the gentleness which she knew to be
in him would manifest itself in the home. She could not imagine him
behaving altogether selfishly towards any one for whom he cared.
"Husbands want training, like children," Rose went on. "I didn't train
my man; I began by spoiling him. That's where most girls make a
mistake. Then, when the babies come, the spoiling ceases generally.
But the harm is done. I have often observed that the husbands of
selfish women are a long way the nicest. Men like peace; they will
sacrifice a great deal in order to get it."
"It is rather an agreeable thing," Esme said, reflecting that a little
more of it in her sister's household would make life pleasanter.
"I dare say it is; but it can't be had on an insufficient income. If
you like peace so much, why do you take the children with you on your
holiday? You won't get peace where they are."
"Oh! we'll get along. We shall be out all day, and there will be other
children for them to play with. They won't worry me."
"It's nice of you to be bothered with them," Rose said. She scrutinised
her sister closely, and, curiosity getting the upper hand, asked
bluntly: "Where is Paul Hallam now?"
"On the Karroo," Esme answered, surprised. "Why?"
"I didn't know. I thought perhaps you might meet at the Zuurberg."
"No. He left there long ago."