Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about Nicholas Kenyon. There
is usually a wildness of exaggeration about this expression which
renders it almost harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses it
applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a new play or a new
set of furs. She will be crazy about a tenor and a pomeranian, a
so-called joke in a comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable
preacher. In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and truly crazy
in its most accurate dictionary sense. After the Worcester Ball, during
which she gave him nearly every dance,--to the flustered concern of the
Don's wife who was her chaperon,--she went to no trouble to conceal from
Kenyon the fact that she found him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not
surprised. Already he was a complete expert in the art of making himself
loved by women. He knew exactly what they liked him to say and he said
it with a touch of insolence which took their breath away and a
following touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect.
Belle was very much to his liking. Her rather Latin beauty, which was
rendered unexplainable by the sight of her parents--her incessant high
spirits and love of life--her naive assumption that she was the mistress
of all the secrets of this world, amused, interested and tickled his
fancy. Her beauty, freshness and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he
went out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He had no
intention whatever of falling in love with her,--first of all because it
was all against his creed to fall in love with anyone but himself;
secondly, because his way of living demanded that he should have no
partner in his business,--all that he could win by his wits he would
need. Nevertheless, he was quite as ready as usual to take everything
that was given to him, and give nothing in return except flattery,
well-rounded sentences and a good deal of his personal attention.
During the week that passed so quickly he had only been able to see
Belle with her people, and when he found that this bored her as much as
it bored him, he set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he
could escape with her from the party for a few hours. Needless to say he
succeeded.
On the night before the party were to leave Oxford he arranged another
evening trip on the river, maneuvered Peter into one punt with his
father and mother, Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle.
For some little time he poled along closely behind them, but as the
river was full of similar parties he found it easy to drop behind and
dodge deftly into a back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself
down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette.
"How's that?" he asked.
Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," she said. "I wondered
how you were going to do it."
He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had performed a similar
trick a hundred times. "Under the right sort of inspiration," he said,
"even I can develop genius. Tell me something about New York, and what
you find to do there."
"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow morning even to begin to
tell you," she said. "I only came out last winter, but the history of it
would fill a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl has a better
time there than anywhere else in the world. Why don't you come and see
something of it for yourself?"
Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft shoulder. "That's
precisely what I'm going to do," he said. "Your father has given me a
cordial invitation to stay at his house, and I shall go over with Peter
in October."
"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love the place--it's so
different."
"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. "I'm simply going for
the chance of dancing with you to the band which really does know how to
play rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles of
unnecessary water to achieve that alone."
"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth gleamed in the
moonlight and her heart pumped a little. How wonderful it would be to
become the wife of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to her to
be everything that was desirable.
Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips. "You don't
believe it? Well, we'll see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to
do so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to go slow. His
epicurianism was so complete that he liked to take his enjoyment in sips
and not empty his glass at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness
was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He looked forward
with absolute certainty to the hour when he should place her on his
little list of achievements; but like all collectors and connoisseurs he
added to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step by step, with
a sort of cold-blooded passion.
Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude in their naturalness
and who immediately voiced their admiration and their liking with boyish
spontaneity. She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately sent
her flowers and presents and dogged her heels from dance to dance and
rang her up constantly on the telephone and generally showed their
eagerness with that lack of control which was characteristic of a
nation which had deliberately placed women in the position of queens.
Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so different that she
found him so attractive. He fed her vanity and piqued it at the same
time. He said more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured to
do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing advance that he left her
assuming more than if he had never advanced at all. It was perfectly
natural, although she had already dipped into the fastest New York set,
that she should believe that at the end of every man's intention there
was a marriage and a sort of throne in his house. She little knew
Nicholas Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men in New York,
and not collectors.
"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" asked Kenyon,
leaning a little more closely against the girl's soft shoulder.
"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the English lakes and
then to Scotland, where father's ancestors lived; and then in August we
shall go to London for a week, and go home on the _Olympic_. Why don't
you go over with us?"
"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but as a matter of fact I
shall wait until Peter has got through his various engagements. He rows
at Henley in July, you know,--the boat is entered for the Lady's
Plate,--and then he comes home with me. He wants to shoot my father's
birds in August and see a little of English country life before he
settles down to his law work in America."
Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week
could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was
really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the
next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite
untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere
week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her
whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time
before falling in love.
"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see
you again, unless,--unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her
how you are and what Peter is doing."
Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week,
as usual--he's very consistent--and I'll get him to put in a postscript
about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself
from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art
of letter-writing."
"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters."
"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?"
"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American
girls before--that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our
mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why?
Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did."
"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you brief but eloquent
descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of
my liver,--that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country."
Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your
letters about," she said.
"Perfectly,--always supposing that you censor the postscripts."
"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the
echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic
ambition to emulate its music.
And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon
Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed,
stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of
duty," he said--"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to
conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments.
When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful
petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to
Graham's idiotic chuckle.
The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon
gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close
against him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the sudden
flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that
took her breath away.
All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not
trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had
caught a glimpse of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and
thrilled.
Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that
he was Peter's friend.
Poor little mother!