BY THE LOVERS' BRIDGE
The usual shower of congratulations descended upon the heads of Nan and
Roger when, on their return from the rose-garden, the news of their
engagement filtered through the house-party and the little bunch of
friends who had "dropped in" for tea, sure of the unfailing hospitality
of Mallow Court. Those amongst the former who had deeper and more
troubled thoughts about the matter were perforce compelled to keep them
in abeyance for the time being.
It was only when the visitors had departed that Kitty succeeded in
getting Nan alone for a few minutes.
"Are you quite--quite happy, Nan?" she asked somewhat wistfully.
Nan's eyes met hers with a blankness of expression which betrayed
nothing.
"Yes, thank you. What a funny question to ask!" she responded promptly.
And Kitty felt as though she had laid her hand on the soft folds of a
velvet curtain, only to come sharply up against a shutter of steel
concealed beneath it.
In duty bound, however, she invited Trenby to remain for dinner, an
invitation which he accepted with alacrity, and throughout the meal Nan
was at her gayest and most sparkling. It seemed impossible to believe
that all was not well with her, and if the brilliant mood were designed
to prevent Penny from guessing the real state of affairs it was
eminently successful. Even Lord St. John and the Seymours were almost
persuaded into the belief that she was happy in her engagement. But as
each and all of them were arguing from the false premise that the
change in Nan had been entirely due to Rooke's treatment of her, they
were inevitably very far from the truth.
That Peter was in love with Nan, Kitty was aware, but she knew nothing
of that brief scene at the flat, interrupted by the delivery of Rooke's
telegram, and during which, with hardly a word spoken, Nan had suddenly
realised that Peter loved her and that she, too, returned his love.
Perhaps had any of them known of that first meeting between the two,
when Peter had come to Nan's rescue in Hyde Park and helped her to her
journey's end, it might have gone far towards enlightening them, but
neither Peter nor Nan had ever supplied any information on the subject.
It almost seemed as though by some mental process of thought
transference, each had communicated with the other and resolved to keep
their secret--an invisible bond between them.
"You're not frightened, are you, Nan?" asked Roger, when the rest of
the household had tactfully left them alone together a few minutes
before his departure.
He spoke very gently and tenderly. Like most men, he was at his best
just now, when he had so newly gained the promise of the woman he
loved--rather humble, even a little awed at the great gift bestowed
upon him, and thinking only of Nan and of what he would do to compass
her happiness in the future when she should be his wife.
"No, I'm not frightened." replied Nan. "I think"--quietly--"I shall be
so--safe--with you."
"Safe?"--emphatically. "I should think you would be safe! I'm strong
enough to guard my wife from most dangers, I think!"
The violet-blue eyes meeting his held a somewhat weary smile. It was
beginning already--that inevitable noncomprehension of two such
divergent natures. They did not sense the same things--did not even
speak the same language. Trenby took everything quite literally--the
obvious surface meaning of the words, and the delicate nuances of
speech, the significant inflections interwoven with it, meant about as
much to him as the frail Venetian glass, the dainty porcelain figures
of old Bristol or Chelsea ware, would mean to the proverbial bull in a
china-shop.
"And now, sweetheart," he went on, rather conventionally, "when will
you come to see my mother? She will be longing to meet you."
Nan shuddered inwardly. Of course she knew one always _did_ ultimately
meet one's future mother-in-law, but the prompt and dutiful way in
which Roger brought out his suggestion seemed like a sentence culled
from some Early Victorian book. Certainly it was altogether alien to
Nan's ultra-modern, semi-Bohemian notions.
"Suppose you come to lunch to-morrow? I should like you to meet her as
soon as possible."
There was something just the least bit didactic in the latter part of
the sentence, a hint of the proprietary note. Nan recoiled from it
instinctively.
"No, not to-morrow," she exclaimed hastily. "I'm going over to see
Aunt Eliza--Mrs. McBain, you know--and I can't put it off. I haven't
been near her for a fortnight, and she'll he awfully offended if I
don't go."
"Then it must be Tuesday," said Roger, with an air of making a
concession.
Nan felt that nothing could save her from Tuesday, and agreed meekly.
At the same moment, to her unspeakable relief, Kitty looked into the
room to enquire gaily:
"Are you two still saying good-bye?"
Trenby rose reluctantly.
"No. We were just making arrangements about Nan's coming to the Hall
to meet my mother. We've fixed it all up, so I must be off now."
It was with a curious sense of freedom regained that Nan watched the
lights of Roger's car speed down the drive.
At least she was her own mistress again till Tuesday!
* * * * * *
Although Nan had conferred the brevet rank of aunt upon Eliza McBain,
the latter was in reality only the sister of an uncle by marriage and
no blood relation--a dispensation for which, at not infrequent
intervals of Nan's career, Mrs. McBain had been led to thank the
Almighty effusively. Born and reared in the uncompromising tenets of
Scotch Presbyterianism, her attitude towards Nan was one of rigid
disapproval--a disapproval that warred somewhat pathetically against
the affection with which the girl's essential lovableness inspired her.
For there was no gainsaying the charm of the Davenant women! But Eliza
still remembered very clearly the sense of shocked dismay which, years
ago, had overwhelmed her righteous soul on learning that her only
brother, Andrew McDermot, had become engaged to one of the beautiful
Davenant sisters.
In those days the insane extravagances and lawlessness of the Davenant
family had become proverbial. There had been only three of them left
to carry on the wild tradition--Timothy, Nan's father, who feared
neither man nor devil, but could wile a bird off a tree or a woman's
heart from her keeping, and his two sisters, whose beauty had broken
more hearts than their kindness could ever mend. And not one of the
three had escaped the temperamental heritage which Angèle de Varincourt
had grafted on to a parent stem of dare-devil, reckless English growth.
The McDermots of Tarn, on the other hand, traced their descent in a
direct line from one of the unbending old Scotch Covenanters of 1638,
and it had always been a source of vague bewilderment to Eliza that a
race sprang from so staunchly Puritan a stock should have been juggled
by that inimitable trickster, Fate, into allying itself with a family
in whose veins ran the hot French blood of the Varincourts.
Perhaps old Dame Nature in her garnered wisdom could have explained the
riddle. Certain it was that no sooner had Andrew McDermot set eyes
upon Gabrielle Davenant--sister to that Annabel whom Lord St. John had
loved and married--than straightway the visions of his youth, in which
he had pictured some staid and modest-seeming Scotswoman as his
helpmeet, were swept away by an overwhelming Celtic passion of love and
romance of which he had not dreamed that he could be possessed.
It was a meeting of extremes, and since Gabrielle had drooped and pined
in the bleak northern castle where the lairds of Tarn had dwelt from
time immemorial, McDermot laid even his ancestral home upon love's
altar and, coming south, had bought Trevarthen Wood, a tree-girt,
sheltered house no great distance from Mallow, though further inland.
But the change was made too late to accomplish its purpose of renewing
Gabrielle's enfeebled health. Almost imperceptibly, with slow and
kindly footsteps, Death had drawn daily nearer, until at last, quite
happily and like a little child that is tired of playing and only wants
to rest, Gabrielle slipped out of the world and her place knew her no
more.
After his wife's death, McDermot had returned to his old home in
Scotland and had reassumed his duties there as laird of the district,
and when, later on, Death struck again, this time leaving his sister
Eliza a widow in none too affluent circumstances, he had presented her
with his Cornish home, glad to be rid of a place so haunted by poignant
memories.
In such wise had Mrs. McBain and Sandy come to dwell in Cornwall, and
since this, their third summer there, had brought his adored Nan
Davenant once more to Mallow Court on a lengthy visit, Sandy's cup of
joy was filled to the brim.
Mrs. McBain regarded her offspring from much the same standpoint as
does a hen the brood of enterprising ducklings which, owing to some
stratagem on the part of the powers that be, have hatched out from the
eggs upon which she has been conscientiously sitting in the fond belief
that they were those of her own species.
Sandy was a source of perpetual surprise to his mother, and of not
inconsiderable anxiety. How she and the late Duncan McBain of entirely
prosaic memory had contrived to produce more or less of a musical
genius by way of offspring she had never been able to fathom. Neither
parent had ever shown the slightest tendency in that direction, and it
is very certain that had such a development manifested itself, they
would have speedily set to work to correct it, regarding music--other
than hymnal--as a lure of Satan.
They had indeed done their best for Sandy himself in that respect,
negativing firmly his desire for proper musical tuition, with the
result that now, at twenty years of age, he was a musician spoilt
through lack of training. Most of his pocket-money in early days had
been expended upon surreptitious violin lessons, and he had frequently
practised for hours out of doors in the woods, at a distance from the
house which secured the parental ear from outrage.
Since her husband's death, however, Eliza, chiding herself the while
for her weakness, had yielded to a pulsing young enthusiasm that would
not be denied, and music of a secular nature was permitted at
Trevarthen--unchecked though disapproved.
Thus it came about that on the afternoon of Nan's visit Sandy was to be
found zealously absorbed in the composition of a triumphal march. The
blare of trumpets, the swinging tramp of marching men and the
thunderous roll of drums--this last occurring very low down in the
bass--were combining to fill the room with joyful noise when there came
a light tap at the open French window and Nan herself stood poised on
the threshold.
"Hullo, Sandy, what's that you're playing?"
Sandy sprang off the music stool, beaming with delight, and, seizing
her by both arms, drew her rapturously into the room.
"You're the very person I want," he exclaimed without further greeting.
"It's a march, and I don't know whether I like this modulation into D
minor or not. Listen."
Nan obeyed, gave her opinion, and finally subsided rather listlessly
into a low arm-chair.
"Give me a cigarette, Sandy. It's an awfully tiring walk here. Is
Aunt Eliza in? I hope she is, because I want some tea."
"She is. But I'd give you tea if she wasn't."
"And set the whole of St. Wennys gossiping! It wouldn't be proper,
boy."
"Oh, yes, it would. I count as a kind of cousin, you know."
"All the same, Mrs. Petherick at the lodge would confide the
information that we'd had tea alone together to Miss Penwarne at the
Post Office, and in half an hour the entire village would be all agog
to know when the subsequent elopement was likely to occur."
Sandy grinned. He had proposed to Nan several times already, only to
be good-naturedly turned down.
"I'd supply a date with pleasure."
Nan shook her head at him.
"A man may not marry his grandmother."
He struck a match and held it while she lit her cigarette. Then,
blowing out the flame, he enquired:
"Does that apply when she's only three years his senior?"
"Oh, Sandy, I'm aeons older than you. A woman always is.
Besides"--her words hurrying a little--"I'm engaged already."
"Engaged?"
He dropped the dead match he was still holding and stared out of the
window a moment. Then, squaring his shoulders, he said quietly:
"Who's the lucky beggar?"
"Roger Trenby."
Sandy's lips pursed themselves to whistle, but he checked himself in
time and no sound escaped. Turning to Nan, he spoke with a gravity
that sat strangely on him.
"Old girl, I hope you'll be very happy--the happiest woman in the
world." But there was a look of dissatisfaction in his eyes which had
nothing whatever to do with his own disappointment. He had known all
along that he had really no chance with her.
"But we're pals, Nan--pals, just the same?" he went on.
She slipped her hand into his.
"Pals--always, Sandy," she replied.
"Thank you," he said simply. "And remember, Nan"--the boyish voice
took on a note of earnestness--"if you're ever in need of a pal---I'm
here, mind."
Nan was conscious of a sudden sharp pain--like the stab of a nerve.
The memory of just such another pledge swept over her: "I think I
should always know if you were in trouble--and I should come." Only it
had been uttered by a different voice--the quiet, drawling voice of
Peter Mallory.
"Thank you, Sandy dear. I won't forget."
There was a faint weariness in her tones, despite the smile which
accompanied them. Sandy's nice green eyes surveyed her critically,
noting the slight hollowing of the outline of her cheek and the little
tired droop of her lips as the smile faded.
"I tell you what it is," he said, "you're fagged out, tramping over
here in all this heat. I'll ring and tell them to hurry up tea."
But before he could reach the bell a servant entered, bringing in the
tea paraphernalia. Sandy turned abruptly to the piano, thrumming out a
few desultory minor chords which probably gave his perturbed young soul
a certain amount of relief, while Nan sat gazing with a half-maternal,
half-humorous tenderness at the head of flaming red hair which had
earned him his sobriquet.
"Weel, so ye've come to see me at last--or is it Sandy that you're
calling on?"
The door had opened to admit Mrs. McBain--a tall, gaunt woman with
iron-grey hair and shrewd, observant eyes that glinted with the grey
flash of steel.
Nan jumped up at her entrance.
"Oh, Aunt Eliza? How are you? I should have been over to see you
before, but there always seems to be something or other going on at
Mallow."
"I don't doubt it--in yon house of Belial," retorted Mrs. McBain,
presenting a chaste cheek to Nan's salute. The young red lips pressed
against the hard-featured face curved into a smile. Nan was no whit in
awe of her aunt's bitter tongue, and it was probably for this very
reason that Mrs. McBain could not help liking her. Most sharp-spoken
people appreciate someone who is not afraid to stand up to them, and
Nan and Mrs. McBain had crossed swords in many a wordy battle.
"Are you applying the name of Belial to poor old Barry?" enquired Sandy
with interest. "I don't consider he's half earned it."
"Barry Seymour's a puir weak fule and canna rule his ain hoose," came
the curt answer.
Mrs. McBain habitually spoke as excellent English as only a Scotswoman
can, but it pleased her on occasion to assume the Doric--much as a
duchess may her tiara.
"Barry's a dear," protested Nan, "and he doesn't need to play at being
master in his own house."
"I'm willing to believe you. That red-headed body is mistress and
master too."
Sandy grinned.
"I consider that remark eminently personal. The hue of one's hair is a
misfortune, not a fault," he submitted teasingly. "In Kitty you must
at least allow that the red takes a more pleasing form than it does
with me."
Mrs. McBain sniffed.
"You'll be tellin' me next that her hair's the colour God made it," she
observed indignantly.
Sandy and Nan broke into laughter.
"Well, mine is, anyway," said the former. "It would never have been
this colour if I'd had a say in the matter."
Eliza surveyed her offspring with disfavour.
"It's an ill thing, Sandy McBain, to question the ways of the Almighty
who made you."
"I don't. It's you who seem far more disposed to disparage the
completed article than I." He beamed at her seraphically.
Eliza's thin lips relaxed into an unwilling smile. Sandy was as
equally the joy of her heart as he was the flagellation of her
conscience.
"Well, I'll own you're the first of the McBains to go daft over music."
She handed a cup of tea to Nan as she spoke. Then asked;
"And how's your uncle, St. John?"
"He's at Mallow, too. We all are--Penelope and Uncle David, and Ralph
Fenton--"
"And who may Mr. Fenton be? I've never met him--have I, Sandy?"
"No. He's a well-known singer Kitty's recently admitted into the fold."
"Do you mean he earns his living by singing at concerts?"
"Yes. And a jolly good living, too."
A shadow fell across Sandy's pleasant freckled face. It was a matter
of unavailing regret to him that owing to his parents' prejudice
against music and musicians he had been debarred from earning a living
in like manner with his long, capable fingers. Eliza saw the shadow,
and her brows contracted in a slight frown. Vaguely she was beginning
to realise some small part of the suffering which the parental
restriction had imposed upon her son--the perpetual irritation of a
thwarted longing which it had entailed. But she had not yet advanced
sufficiently along the widening road of thought to grasp the pitiful,
irreparable waste it had involved of a talent bordering on genius.
She pursed her lips obstinately together.
"There'll come no blessing with money that's earned by mere
pleasuring," she averred.
"If you only knew what hard work it means to be a successful musician,
Aunt Eliza, you'd be less drastic in your criticism," interposed Nan,
with warmth.
Eliza's shrewd eyes twinkled.
"You work hard, don't you, my dear?" she observed drily.
Nan laughed, colouring a little.
"Perhaps I should work harder if Uncle David didn't spoil me so. You
know he's increased my allowance lately?"
Eliza snorted indignantly.
"I always kent he was mair fulish than maist o' his sex."
"It's rather an endearing kind of foolishness," remarked Sandy.
His mother eyed him sharply.
"We're not put into the world to be endearing," she retorted, "but to
do our duty."
"It might be possible to combine both," suggested Sandy.
"Well, you're not the one to do it," she answered grimly. "And what's
Penelope doing?" she continued, turning to Nan. "She's more sense than
the rest of ye put together, for all she's so daft about music."
"Penelope," said Sandy solemnly, "is preparing to enter upon the duties
and privileges of matrimony."
"What may you mean by that?"
Sandy stirred his tea while Eliza waited impatiently for his answer.
"She's certainly 'walking out,'" he maintained.
"And that's by no means the shortest road to matrimony," snapped Eliza.
"My cook's been walking out with the village carpenter ever since she
came to St. Wennys, but she's no nearer a wedding ring than she was
twelve months ago."
"I think," observed Sandy gravely, "that greater success will attend
Penelope's perambulations. Kitty was so cock-a-hoop over it that she
couldn't refrain from 'phoning the good news on Sunday morning. I
meant to tell you when you came back from church, but clean forgot."
"And who's the man?"
"Penelope's young man? Oh, Ralph Fenton, the fellow who makes
'pleasuring' pay so uncommonly well. He's been occupying an
ignominious position at the wheels of Penelope's chariot ever since
they both came to Mallow. I think Kitty Seymour would make a
matrimonial agent _par excellence_--young men and maidens introduced
under the most favourable circumstances and _no_ fee when
suited!"--Sandy flourished his arms expressively.
"And if she could find a good, sensible lassie to tak' ye in hand,
Sandy McBain, I'd no be grudgin' a fee."
"No good, mother of mine. I lost my heart to Nan here too long ago,
and now"--with a lightness of tone that effectually concealed his
feelings--"not to be outdone by Penny, she herself has gone and got
engaged. So I shall live and die alone."
"And what like is the man ye've chosen?" demanded Eliza, turning to
Nan. "Not another of these music-daft creatures, I hope?"
"I think you'll quite approve, Aunt Eliza," answered Nan with a
becoming meekness. "I'm engaged to marry Roger Trenby."
"Well, I hope ye'll be happier than maist o' the married folks I ken.
Eh!"--with a chuckle--"but Roger's picked a stick for his own back!"
Nan smiled.
"Do you think I'll be so bad to live with, then?"
"'Tisn't so much that you'll be bad with intent. But you're that
Varincourt woman's own great-grand-daughter. Not that ye can help it,
and I'm no blamin' ye for it. But 'tis wild blood!"
Nan rose, laughing, and kissed her aunt.
"After such a snub as that, I think I'd better take myself off. It's
really time I started, as I'm walking."
"Let me run you back in the car," suggested Sandy eagerly.
"No, thanks. I'm taking the short cut home through the woods."
Sandy accompanied her down the drive. At the gates he stopped abruptly.
"Nan," he said quietly. "Is it quite O.K. about your engagement?
You'll be really happy with Trenby?"
Nan paused a moment. Then she spoke, very quietly and with a touch of
cynicism quite foreign to the fresh, sweet outlook upon life which had
been hers before she had ever met Maryon Rooke.
"I don't suppose I should be really happy with anyone, Sandy. I want
too much. . . . But it's quite O.K. and you needn't worry."
With a parting nod she started off along the ribbon of road which wound
its way past the gates of Trevarthen Wood, and then, dipping into the
valley, climbed the hill beyond and lost itself in the broad highway of
light which shimmered from the western sky. Presently she turned aside
from the road and, scrambling through a gap in a stone wall, plunged
into the cool shadows of the woods. A heavy rain had fallen during the
night, soaking the thirsty earth, and the growing green things were all
responsively alive and vivid once again, while the clean, pleasant
smell of damp soil came fragrantly to her nostrils.
Though she tramped manfully along, Nan found her progress far from
swift, for the surface of the ground was sticky and sodden after the
rain. Her boots made soft little sucking sounds at every step. Nor
was she quite sure of her road back to Mallow by way of the woods. She
had been instructed that somewhere there ran a tiny river which she
must cross by means of a footbridge, and then ascend the hill on the
opposite side. "And after that," Barry had told her, "you can't lose
yourself if you try."
But prior to that it seemed a very probable contingency, and she was
beginning to weary of plodding over the boggy land, alternately slapped
by outstanding branches or--when a little puff of wind raced
overhead--drenched by a shower of garnered raindrops from some tree
which seemed to shake itself in the breeze just as a dog may shake
himself after a plunge in the sea, and with apparently the same
intention of wetting you as much as possible in the process.
At last from somewhere below came the sound of running water, and Nan
bent her steps hopefully in its direction. A few minutes' further
walking brought her to the head of a deep-bosomed coombe, and the mere
sight of it was almost reward enough for the difficulties of the
journey. A verdant cleft, it slanted down between the hills, the trees
on either side giving slow, reluctant place to big boulders,
moss-bestrewn and grey, while athwart the tall brown trunks which
crowned it, golden spears, sped by the westering sun, tremulously
pierced the summer dusts.
Nan made her way down the coombe's steep side with feet that slipped
and slid on the wet, shelving banks of mossy grass. But at length she
reached the level of the water and here her progress became more sure.
Further on, she knew, must be the footbridge which Barry had
described--probably beyond the sharp curve which lay just ahead of her.
She rounded the bend, then stopped abruptly, startled at seeing the
figure of a man standing by the bank of the river. He had his back
towards her and seemed engrossed in his thoughts. Almost instantly,
however, as though subconsciously aware of her approach, he turned.
Nan stood quite still as he came towards her, limping a little. She
felt that if she moved she must surely stumble and fall. The beating
of her heart thundered in her ears and for a moment the river, and the
steep sides of the coombe, and the figure of Peter Mallory himself all
seemed to grow dim and vague as though seen through a thick mist.
"Nan!"
The dear, familiar voice, with an ineffable tenderness in its slow
drawl, reached her even through the thrumming beat of her heart.
"Peter--oh, Peter--"
Her voice failed her, and the next moment they were shaking hands
conventionally just as though they were two quite ordinary people with
whom love had nothing to do.
"I didn't know you were coming to-day," she said, making a fierce
effort to regain composure.
"I wired Kitty on the train. Hasn't she had the telegram?"
"Yes, I expect so. Only I've been out all afternoon, so knew nothing
about it. And now I've lost my way!"
"Lost your way?"
"Yes. I expected to find a footbridge round the corner."
"It's round the next one. I sent the car on with my kit, and thought
I'd walk up from the station. So we're both making for the same
bridge. It's only about two minutes' walk from here."
They strolled on side by side, Peter rather silent, and each of them
vibrantly conscious of the other's nearness. Suddenly Mallory pulled
up and a quick exclamation broke from him as he pointed ahead.
"We're done! The bridge is gone!"
Nan's eyes followed the direction of his hand. Here the river ran more
swiftly, and swollen by last nights storm of wind and rain, it had
swept away the frail old footbridge which spanned it. Only a few
decayed sticks and rotten wooden stumps remained of what had once been
known as the Lovers' Bridge--the trysting place of who shall say how
many lovers in the days of its wooden prime?
Somehow a tinge of melancholy seemed to hang about the few scraps of
wreckage. How many times the little bridge must have tempted men and
maidens to linger of a summer evening, dreaming the big dreams of
youth--visions which the spreading wings of Time bear away into the
Land of Lost Desires. Perhaps some kind hand garners them--those
tender, wonderful, courageous dreams of our wise youth and keeps them
safely for us against the Day of Reckoning, so that they may weight the
scales a little in our favour.
Peter stood looking down at the scattered fragments of the bridge with
an odd kind of gravity in his eyes. It seemed a piece of trenchant
symbolism that the Lovers' Bridge should break when he and Nan essayed
to cross it. There was a slight, whimsical smile, which held something
of pain, on his lips when he turned to her again.
"I shall have to carry you across," he said.
She shook her head.
"No, thanks. You might drop me. I can wade over."
"It's too deep for you to do that. I won't let you drop."
But Nan still hesitated. She was caught by sudden panic. She felt
that she couldn't let Peter--Peter, of all men in the world--carry her
in his arms!
"It isn't so deep higher up, is it?" she suggested. "I could wade
there."
"No, it's not so deep, but the river bed is very stony. You'd cut your
feet to pieces."
"Then I suppose you'll have to carry me," she agreed at last, with
obvious reluctance.
"I promise I won't drop you," he assured her quietly.
He gathered her up into his arms, and as he lifted her the rough tweed
of his coat brushed her cheek. Then, holding her very carefully, he
stepped down from the bank into the stream and began to make his way
across.
Nan had no fear that he might let her fall. The arms that held her
felt pliant and strong as steel, and their clasp about her filled her
with a strange, new ecstasy that thrilled her from head to foot. It
frightened her.
"Am I awfully heavy?" she asked, nervously anxious to introduce some
element of commonplace.
And Peter, looking down at the delicately angled face which lay against
his shoulder, drew his breath hard.
"No," he answered briefly. "You're not heavy."
There was that in his gaze which brought the warm colour into her face.
Her lids fell swiftly, veiling her eyes, and she turned her face
quickly towards his shoulder. All that remained visible was the edge
of the little turban hat she wore and, below this, a dusky sweep of
hair against her white skin.
He went on in silence, conscious in every fibre of his being of the
supple body gathered so close against his own, of the young, sweet,
clean-cut curve of her cheek, and of the warmth of her hair against his
shoulder. He jerked his head aside, his mouth set grimly, and crossed
quickly to the other bank of the river.
As he let her slip to the ground, steadying her with his arms about
her, he bent swiftly and for an instant his lips just brushed her hair.
Nan scarcely felt the touch of his kiss, it fell so lightly, but she
sensed it through every nerve of her. Standing in the twilight, shaken
and clutching wildly after her self-control, she knew that if he
touched her again or took her in his arms, she would yield
helplessly--gladly!
Peter knew it, too, knew that the merest thread of courage and
self-respect kept them apart. His arms strained at his sides. Forcing
his voice to an impersonal, level tone, he said practically:
"It's getting late. Come on, little pal, we must make up time, or
they'll be sending out a search party for us from Mallow."
It was late in the evening before Nan and Peter found themselves alone
together again. Everyone was standing about in the big hall exchanging
good nights and last snippets of talk before taking their several ways
to bed. Peter drew Nan a little to one side.
"Nan, is it true that you're engaged to Trenby?" he asked.
"Quite true." She had to force the answer to her lips. Mallory's face
was rather stern.
"Why didn't you tell me this afternoon?"
"I--I couldn't, Peter," she said, under her breath. "I couldn't."
His face still wore that white, unsmiling look. But he drew Nan's
shaking hands between his own and held them very gently as he put his
next question.
"You don't care for him." It was more an assertion, than a question,
though it demanded a reply.
"No."
His grasp of her hands tightened.
"Then, for God's sake, don't make the same hash of your life as I made
of mine. Believe me, Nan"--his voice roughened--"it's far worse to be
married to someone you don't love than to remain unmarried all your
days."