Toward three o'clock on the following afternoon the sun opened up like
a searchlight through the veil of rain, dissolving it to a golden haze
which gradually grew thinner and thinner, revealing glimpses of
rolling country against a horizon of low mountains.
About the same time the covered station wagon turned in between the
white gates of Foreland Farms, proceeded at a smart trot up the drive,
and stopped under a dripping porte-cochere, where a smiling servant
stood waiting to lift out the luggage.
A trim looking man of forty odd, in soft shirt and fawn coloured
knickers, and wearing a monocle in his right eye and a flower in his
buttonhole, came out on the porch as Barres and his guests descended.
"Well, Garry," he said, "I'm glad you're home at last! But you're
rather late for the fishing." And to Westmore:
"How are you, Jim? Jolly to have you back! But I regret to inform you
that the fishing is very poor just now."
His son, who stood an inch or two taller than his debonaire parent,
passed one arm around his shoulders and patted them affectionately
while the easy presentations were concluded.
At the same moment two women, beautifully mounted and very wet,
galloped up to the porch and welcomed Garry's guests from their
saddles in the pleasant, informal, incurious manner characteristic of
Foreland Farm folk--a manner which seemed too amiably certain of
itself to feel responsibility for anybody or anything else.
Easy, unconcerned, slender and clean-built women these--Mrs. Reginald
Barres, Garry's mother, and her daughter, Lee. And in their smart,
rain-wet riding clothes they might easily have been sisters, with a
few years' difference between them, so agreeably had Time behaved
toward Mrs. Barres, so closely her fair-haired, fair-skinned daughter
resembled her.
They swung carelessly out of their saddles and set spurred foot to
turf, and, with Garret and his guests, sauntered into the big living
hall, where a maid waited with wine and biscuits and the housekeeper
lingered to conduct Thessalie and Dulcie to their rooms.
Dulcie Soane, in her pretty travelling gown, walked beside Mrs.
Reginald Barres into the first great house she had ever entered.
Composed, but shyly enchanted, an odd but delightful sensation
possessed her that she was where she belonged--that such environment,
such people should always have been familiar to her--were logical and
familiar to her now.
Mrs. Barres was saying:
"And if you like parties, there is always gaiety at Northbrook. But
you don't have to go anywhere or do anything you don't wish to."
Dulcie said, diffidently, that she liked everything, and Mrs. Barres
laughed.
"Then you'll be very popular," she said, tossing her riding crop onto
the table and stripping off her wet gloves.
Barres senior was already in serious confab with Westmore concerning
piscatorial conditions, the natural low water of midsummer, the
capricious conduct of the trout in the streams and in the upper and
lower lakes.
"They won't look at anything until sunset," he explained, "and then
they don't mean business. You'll see, Jim. I'm sorry; you should have
come in June."
Lee, Garret's boyishly slim sister, had already begun to exchange
opinions about horses with Thessalie, for both had been familiar with
the saddle since childhood, though the latter's Cossack horsemanship
and mastery of the haute ecole, incident to her recent and irregular
profession, might have astonished Lee Barres.
Mrs. Barres was saying to Dulcie:
"We don't try to entertain one another here, but everybody seems to
have a perfectly good time. The main thing is that we all feel quite
free at Foreland. You'll lose yourself indoors at first. The family
for a hundred years has been adding these absurd two-story wings, so
that the house wanders at random over the landscape, and you may have
to inquire your way about in the beginning."
She smiled again at Dulcie and took her hand in both of hers:
"I'm sure you will like the Farms," she said, linking her other arm
through her son's. "I'm rather wet, Garry," she added, "but I think
Lee and I had better dry out in the saddle." And to Dulcie again: "Tea
at five, if anybody wishes it. Would you like to see your room?"
Thessalie, conversing with Lee, turned smilingly to be included in the
suggestion; and the maid came forward to conduct her and Dulcie
through the intricacies of the big, casual, sprawling house, where
rooms and corridors and halls rambled unexpectedly and irrelevantly
in every direction, and one vista seemed to terminate in another.
When they had disappeared, the Barres family turned to inspect its son
and heir with habitual and humorous insouciance, commenting frankly
upon his personal appearance and concluding that his health still
remained all that could be desired by the most solicitous of parents
and sisters.
"There are rods already rigged up in the work-room," remarked his
father, "if you and your guests care to try a dry-fly this evening. As
for me, you'll find me somewhere around the upper lake, if you care to
look for me----"
He fished out of his pocket a bewildering tangle of fine mist-leaders,
and, leisurely disentangling them, strolled toward the porch, still
talking:
"There's only one fly they deign to notice, now--a dust-coloured midge
tied in reverse with no hackle, no tinsel, a May-fly tail, and barred
canary wing----" He nodded wisely over his shoulder at his son and
Westmore, as though sharing with them a delightful secret of
world-wide importance, and continued on toward the porch, serenely
interested in his tangled leaders.
Garret glanced at his mother and sister; they both laughed. He said:
"Dad is one of those rarest of modern beings, a genuine angler of the
old school. After all the myriad trout and salmon he has caught in a
career devoted to fishing, the next fish he catches gives him just as
fine a thrill as did the very first one he ever hooked! It's quite
wonderful, isn't it, mother?"
"It's probably what keeps him so youthful," remarked Westmore. "The
thing to do is to have something to do. That's the elixir of youth.
Look at your mother, Garry. She's had a busy handful bringing you
up!"
Garret looked at his slender, attractive mother and laughed again:
"Is that what keeps you so young and pretty, mother?--looking after
me?"
"Alas, Garry, I'm over forty, and I look it!"
"Do you?--you sweet little thing!" he interrupted, picking her up
suddenly from the floor and marching proudly around the room with her.
"Gaze upon my mother, Jim! Isn't she cunning? Isn't she the smartest
little thing in America? Behave yourself, mother! Your grateful son is
showing you off to the appreciative young gentleman from New
York----"
"You're ridiculous! Jim! Make him put me down!"
But her tall son swung her to his shoulder and placed her high on the
mantel shelf over the huge fireplace; where she sat beside the clock,
charming, resentful, but helpless, her spurred boots dangling down.
"Come on, Lee!" cried her brother, "I'm going to put you up beside
her. That mantel needs ornamental bric-a-brac and objets d'art----"
Lee turned to escape, but her brother cornered and caught her, and
swung her high, seating her beside his indignant mother.
"Just as though we were two Angora kittens," remarked Lee, sidling
along the stone shelf toward her mother. Then she glanced out through
the open front door. "Lift us down, quick, Garry. You'd better! The
horses are in the flower beds and there'll be no more bouquets for the
table in another minute!"
So he lifted them off the mantel and they hastily departed, each
administering correction with her riding crop as she dodged past him
and escaped.
"If your guests want horses you know where to find them!" called back
his sister from the porch. And presently she and his mother, securely
mounted, went cantering away across country, where grass and fern and
leaf and blossom were glistening in the rising breeze, weighted down
with diamond drops of rain.
Westmore walked leisurely toward his quarters, to freshen up and don
knickers. Garret followed him into the west wing, whistling
contentedly under his breath, inspecting each remembered object with
great content as he passed, nodding smilingly to the servants he
encountered, lingering on the landing to acknowledge the civilities of
the ancient family cat, who recognised him with effusion but coyly
fled the advances of Westmore, ignoring all former and repeated
introductions.
Their rooms adjoined and they conversed through the doorway while
engaged in ablutions.
Presently, from behind his sheer sash-curtains, Westmore caught sight
of Thessalie on the west terrace below. She wore a shell-pink frock
and a most distractingly pretty hat; and he hurried his dressing as
much as he could without awaking Garret's suspicions.
A few minutes later, radiant in white flannels, he appeared on the
terrace, breathing rather fast but wreathed in persuasive smiles.
"I know this place; I'll take you for a walk where you won't get your
shoes wet. Shall I?" he suggested, with all his guile and cunning
quite plain to Thessalie, and his purpose perfectly transparent to her
smiling eyes.
But she consented prettily, and went with him without demurring,
picking her way over the stepping-stone walk with downcast gaze and
the trace of a smile on her lips--a smile as delicately indefinable as
the fancy which moved her to accept this young man's headlong
advances--which had recognized them and accepted them from the first.
But why, she did not even yet understand.
"Agreeable weather, isn't it?" said Westmore, fatuously revealing his
present paucity of ideas apart from those which concerned the wooing
of her. And he was an intelligent young man at that, and a sculptor of
attainment, too. But now, in his infatuated head, there remained room
only for one thought, the thought of this girl who walked so demurely
and daintily beside him over the flat, grass-set stepping stones
toward the three white pines on the little hill.
For it had been something or other at first sight with Westmore--love,
perhaps--anyway that is what he called the mental chaos which now
disorganised him. And it was certain that something happened to him
the first time he laid eyes on Thessalie Dunois. He knew it, and she
could not avoid seeing it, so entirely naive his behaviour, so utterly
guileless his manoeuvres, so direct, unfeigned and childish his
methods of approach.
At moments she felt nervous and annoyed by his behaviour; at other
times apprehensive and helpless, as though she were responsible for
something that did not know how to take care of itself--something
immature, irrational, and entirely at her mercy. And it may have been
the feminine response to this increasing sense of obligation--the
confused instinct to guide, admonish and protect--that began being the
matter with her.
Anyway, from the beginning the man had a certain fascination for her,
unwillingly divined on her part, yet specifically agreeable even to
the point of exhilaration. Also, somehow or other, the girl realised
he had a brain.
And yet he was a pitiably hopeless case; for even now he was saying
such things as:
"Are you quite sure that your feet are dry? I should never forgive
myself, Thessa, if you took cold.... Are you tired?... How wonderful
it is to be here alone with you, and strive to interpret the mystery
of your mind and heart! Sit here under the pines. I'll spread my coat
for you.... Nature is wonderful, isn't it, Thessa?"
And when she gravely consented to seat herself he dropped recklessly
onto the wet pine needles at her feet, and spoke with imbecile delight
again of nature--of how wonderful were its protean manifestations, and
how its beauties were not meant to be enjoyed alone but in mystic
communion with another who understood.
It was curious, too, but this stuff seemed to appeal to her, some
commonplace chord within her evidently responding. She sighed and
looked at the mountains. They really were miracles of colour--masses
of purest cobalt, now, along the horizon.
But perhaps the trite things they uttered did not really matter;
probably it made no difference to them what they said. And even if he
had murmured: "There are milestones along the road to Dover," she
might have responded: "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe";
and neither of them would have heard anything at all except the rapid,
confused, and voiceless conversation of two youthful human hearts
beating out endless questions and answers that never moved their
smiling lips. There was the mystery, if any--the constant wireless
current under the haphazard flow of words.
There was no wind in the pines; meadow and pasture, woodland and swale
stretched away at their feet to the distant, dark-blue hills. And all
around them hung the rain-washed fragrance of midsummer under a still,
cloudless sky.
"It seems impossible that there can be war anywhere in the world," she
said.
"You know," he began, "it's getting on my nerves the way those swine
from the Rhine are turning this decent green world into a bloody
wallow! Unless we do something about it pretty soon, I think I'll go
over."
She looked up:
"Where?"
"To France."
She remained silent for a while, merely lifting her dark eyes to him
at intervals; then she grew preoccupied with other thoughts that left
her brows bent slightly inward and her mouth very grave.
He gazed reflectively out over the fields and woods:
"Yes, I can't stand it much longer," he mused aloud.
"What would you do there?" she inquired.
"Anything. I could drive a car. But if they'll take me in some
Canadian unit--or one of the Foreign Legions--it would suit me.... You
know a man can't go on just living in the world while this beastly
business continues--can't go on eating and sleeping and shaving and
dressing as though half of civilisation were not rolling in agony and
blood, stabbed through and through----"
His voice caught--he checked himself and slowly passed his hand over
his smoothly shaven face.
"Those splendid poilus," he said; "where they stand we Americans ought
to be standing, too.... God knows why we hesitate.... I can't tell you
what we think.... Some of us--don't agree--with the Administration."
His jaws snapped on the word; he stared out through the sunshine at
the swallows, now skimming the uncut hay fields in their gusty evening
flight.
"Are you really going?" she asked, at length.
"Yes. I'll wait a little while longer to see what my country is going
to do. If it doesn't stir during the next month or two, I shall go. I
think Garry will go, too."
She nodded.
"Of course," he remarked, "we'd prefer our own flag, Garry and I. But
if it is to remain furled----" He shrugged, picked a spear of grass,
and sat brooding and breaking it into tiny pieces.
"The only thing that troubles me," he went on presently, keeping his
gaze riveted on his busy fingers, "the only thing that worries me is
you!"
"Me?" she exclaimed softly. And an inexplicable little thrill shot
through her.
"You," he repeated. "You worry me to death."
She considered him a moment, her lips parted as though she were about
to say something, but it remained unsaid, and a slight colour came
into her cheeks.
"What am I to do about you?" he went on, apparently addressing the
blade of grass he was staring at. "I can't leave you as matters
stand."
She said:
"Please, you are not responsible for me, are you?" And tried to laugh,
but scarcely smiled.
"I want to be," he muttered. "I desire to be entirely----"
"Thank you. You have been more than kind. And very soon I hope I shall
be on happy terms with my own Government again. Then your solicitude
should cease."
"If your Government listens to reason----"
"Then I also could go to France!" she interrupted. "Merely to think of
it excites me beyond words!"
He looked up quickly:
"You wish to go back?"
"Of course!"
"Why?"
"How can you ask that! If you had been a disgraced exile as I have
been, as I still am--and falsely accused of shameful things--annoyed,
hounded, blackmailed, offered bribes, constantly importuned to become
what I am not--a traitor to my own people--would you not be wildly
happy to be proven innocent? Would you not be madly impatient to
return and prove your devotion to your own land?"
"I understand," he said in a low voice.
"Of course you understand. Do you imagine that I, a French girl, would
have remained here in shameful security if I could have gone back to
France and helped? I would have done anything--anything, I tell
you--scrubbed the floors of hospitals, worked my fingers to the
bone----"
"I'll wait till you go," he said.... "They'll clear your record very
soon, I expect. I'll wait. And we'll go together. Shall we, Thessa?"
But she had not seemed to hear him; her dark eyes grew remote, her
gaze swept the sapphire distance. It was his hand laid lightly over
hers that aroused her, and she withdrew her fingers with a frown of
remonstrance.
"Won't you let me speak?" he said. "Won't you let me tell you what my
heart tells me?"
She shook her head slowly:
"I don't desire to hear yet--I don't know where my own heart--or even
my mind is--or what I think about--anything. Please be reasonable."
She stole a look at him to see how he was taking it, and there was
concern enough in her glance to give him a certain amount of hope had
he noticed it.
"You like me, Thessa, don't you?" he urged.
"Have I not admitted it? Do you know that you are becoming a serious
responsibility to me? You worry me, too! You are like a boy with all
your emotions reflected on your features and every thought perfectly
unconcealed and every impulse followed by unconsidered behaviour.
"Be reasonable. I have asked it a hundred times of you in vain. I
shall ask it, probably, innumerable times before you comply with my
request. Don't show so plainly that you imagine yourself in love. It
embarrasses me, it annoys Garry, and I don't know what his family will
think----"
"But if I _am_ in love, why not----"
"Does one advertise all one's most intimate and secret and--and sacred
emotions?" she interrupted in sudden and breathless annoyance. "It is
not the way that successful courtship is conducted, I warn you! It is
not delicate, it is not considerate, it is not sensible.... And I _do_
want you to--to be always--sensible and considerate. I _want_ to like
you."
He looked at her in a sort of dazed way:
"I'll try to please you," he said. "But it seems to confuse
me--being so suddenly bowled over--a thing like that rather knocks
a man out--so unexpected, you know!--and there isn't much use
pretending," he went on excitedly. "I can't see anybody else in
the world except you! I can't think of anybody else! I'm madly in
love--blindly, desperately----"
"Oh, please, _please_!" she remonstrated. "I'm not a girl to be taken
by storm! I've seen too much--lived too much! I'm not a Tzigane to be
galloped alongside of and swung to a man's saddle-bow! Also, I shall
tell you one thing more. Happiness and laughter are necessities to
me! And they seem to be becoming extinct in you."
"Hang it!" he demanded tragically, "how can I laugh when I'm in
love!"
At that a sudden, irresponsible little peal of laughter parted her
lips.
"Oh, dear!" she said, "you _are_ funny! Is it a matter of prayer and
fasting, then, this gloomy sentiment which you say you entertain for
me? I don't know whether to be flattered or vexed--you are _so_
funny!" And her laughter rang out again, clear and uncontrolled.
The girl was quite irresistible in her care-free gaiety; her lovely
face and delicious laughter no man could utterly withstand, and
presently a faint grin became visible on his features.
"Now," she cried gaily, "you are becoming human and not a Grecian mask
or a gargoyle! Remain so, mon ami, if you expect me to wish you good
luck in your love--your various affairs----" She blushed as she
checked herself. But he said very quickly:
"Will you wish me luck, Thessa, in my various love affairs?"
"How many have you on hand?"
"Exactly one. Do you wish me a sporting chance? Do you, Thessa?"
"Why--yes----"
"Will you wish me good luck in my courtship of you?"
The quick colour again swept her cheeks at that, but she laughed
defiantly:
"Yes," she said, "I wish you luck in that, also. Only remember
this--whether you win or lose you must laugh. _That_ is good
sportsmanship. Do you promise? Very well! Then I wish you the best of
luck in your--various--courtships! And may the girl you win at least
know how to laugh!"
"She certainly does," he said so naively that they both gave way to
laughter again, finding each other delightfully absurd.
"It's the key to my heart, laughter--in case you are looking for the
key," she said daringly. "The world is a grim scaffold, mon ami; mount
it gaily and go to the far gods laughing. Tell me, is there a better
way to go?"
"No; it's the right way, Thessa. I shan't be a gloom any more. Come
on; let's walk! What if you do get your bally shoes wet! I'm through
mooning and fussing and worrying over you, young lady! You're as
sturdy and vigorous as I am. After all, it's a comrade a man wants in
the world--not a white mouse in cotton batting! Come! Are you going
for a brisk walk across country? Or are you a white mouse?"
She stood up in her dainty shoes and frail gown and cast a glance of
hurt reproach at him.
"Don't be brutal," she said. "I'm not dressed to climb trees and
fences with you."
"You won't come?"
Their eyes met in silent conflict for a few moments. Then she said:
"Please don't make me.... It's such a darling gown, Jim."
A wave of deep happiness enveloped him and he laughed: "All right," he
said, "I won't ask you to spoil your frock!" And he spread his coat on
the pine needles for her once more.
She considered the situation for a few moments before she sat down.
But she did seat herself.
"Now," he said, "we are going to discuss a situation. This is the
situation: I am deeply in love. And you're quite right, it's no
funeral; it's a joyous thing to be in love. It's a delight, a gaiety,
a happy enchantment. Isn't it?"
She cast a rather shy and apprehensive glance at him, but nodded
slightly.
"Very well," he said, "I'm in love, and I'm happy and proud to be in
love. What I wish then, naturally, is marriage, a home, children----"
"Please, Jim!"
"But I can't have 'em! Why? Because I'm going to France. And the girl
I wish to marry is going also. And while I bang away at the boche she
makes herself useful in canteens, rest-houses, hospitals, orphanages,
everywhere, in fact, where she is needed."
"Yes."
"And after it's all over--all over--and ended----"
"Yes?"
"Then--then if she finds out that she loves me----"
"Yes, Jim--if she finds that out.... And thank you for--asking me--so
sweetly."... She turned sharply and looked out over a valley suddenly
blurred.
For it had been otherwise with her in years gone by, and men had
spoken then quite as plainly but differently. Only d'Eblis, burnt out,
done for, and obsessed, had wearily and unwillingly advanced that
far.... And Ferez, too; but that was unthinkable of a creature in whom
virtue and vice were of the same virus.
Looking blindly out over the valley she said:
"If my Government deals justly with me, then I shall go to France with
you as your comrade. If I ever find that I love you I will be your
wife.... Until then----" She stretched out her hand, not looking
around at him; and they exchanged a quick, firm clasp.
And so matters progressed between, these two--rather ominously for
Barres, in case he entertained any really serious sentiments in regard
to Thessalie. And, recently, he had been vaguely conscious that he
entertained something or other concerning the girl which caused him to
look with slight amazement and unsympathetic eyes upon the all too
obvious behaviour of his comrade Westmore.
At present he was standing in the summer house which terminated the
blossoming tunnel of the rose arbour, watching water falling into a
stone basin from the fishy mouth of a wall fountain, and wondering
where Thessalie and Westmore had gone.
Dulcie, in a thin white frock and leghorn hat, roaming entranced and
at hazard over lawn and through shrubbery and garden, encountered him
there, still squinting abstractedly at the water spout.
It was the first time the girl had seen him since their arrival at
Foreland Farms. And now, as she paused under the canopy of fragrant
rain-drenched roses and looked at this man who had made all this
possible for her, she suddenly felt the change within herself, fitting
her for it all--a subtle metamorphosis completing itself within
her--the final accomplishment of a transmutation, deep, radical,
permanent.
For her, the stark, starved visage which Life had worn had relaxed; in
the grim, forbidding wall which had closed her horizon, a door opened,
showing a corner of a world where she knew, somehow, she belonged.
And in her heart, too, a door seemed to open, and her youthful soul
stepped out of it, naked, fearless, quite certain of itself and, for
the first time during their brief and earthly partnership, quite
certain of the body wherein it dwelt.
He was thinking of Thessalie when Dulcie came up and stood beside
him, looking down into the water where a few goldfish swam.
"Well, Sweetness," he said, brightening, "you look very wonderful in
white, with that big hat on your very enchanting red hair."
"I feel both wonderful and enchanted," she said, lifting her eyes. "I
shall live in the country some day."
"Really?" he said smiling.
"Yes, when I earn enough money. Do you remember the crazy way
Strindberg rolls around? Well, I feel like doing it on that lawn."
"Go ahead and do it," he urged. But she only laughed and chased the
goldfish around the basin with gentle fingers.
"Dulcie," he said, "you're unfolding, you're blossoming, you're
developing feminine snap and go and pep and je-ne-sais-quoi."
"You're teasing. But I believe I'm very feminine--and mature--though
you don't think so."
"Well, I don't think you're exactly at an age called well-preserved,"
he said, laughing. He took her hands and drew her up to confront him.
"You're not too old to have me as a playmate, Sweetness, are you?"
She seemed to be doubtful.
"What! Nonsense! And you're not too old to be bullied and coaxed and
petted----"
"Yes, I am."
"And you're not too old to pose for me----"
She grew pink and looked down at the submerged goldfish. And, keeping
her eyes there:
"I wanted to ask you," she said, "how much longer you think you would
require me--that way."
There was a silence. Then she looked at him out of her frank grey
eyes.
"You know I'll do what you wish," she said. "And I know it is quite
all right...." She smiled at him. "I belong to you: you made me....
And you know all about me. So you ought to use me as you wish."
"You don't want to pose?" he said.
"Yes, except----"
"Very well."
"Are you annoyed?"
"No, Sweetness. It's all right."
"You are annoyed--disappointed! And I won't have it. I--I couldn't
stand it--to have you displeased----"
He said pleasantly:
"I'm not displeased, Dulcie. And there's no use discussing it. If you
have the slightest feeling that way, when we go back to town I'll do
things like the Arethusa from somebody else----"
"Please don't!" she exclaimed in such naive alarm that he began to
laugh and she blushed vividly.
"Oh, you are feminine, all right!" he said. "If it isn't to be you it
isn't to be anybody."
"I didn't mean that.... _Yes_, I did!"
"Oh, Dulcie! Shame! _You_ jealous!--even to the verge of sacrificing
your own feelings----"
"I don't know what it is, but I'd rather you used me for your
Arethusa. You know," she added wistfully, "that we began it
together."
"Right, Sweetness. And we'll finish it together or not at all. Are you
satisfied?"
She smiled, sighed, nodded. He released her lovely, childlike hands
and she walked to the doorway of the summer house and looked out over
the wall-bed, where tall thickets of hollyhock and blue larkspur
stretched away in perspective toward a grove of trees and a little
pond beyond.
His painter's eye, already busy with the beauty of her face and
figure against the riot of flowers, and almost mechanically
transposing both into terms of colour and value, went blind suddenly
as she turned and looked at him.
And for the first time--perhaps with truer vision--he became aware of
what else this young girl was besides a satisfying combination of tint
and contour--this lithe young thing palpitating with life--this
slender, gently breathing girl with her grey eyes meeting his so
candidly--this warm young human being who belonged more truly in the
living scheme of things than she did on painted canvas or in marble.
From this unexpected angle, and suddenly, he found himself viewing her
for the first time--not as a plaything, not as a petted model, not as
an object appealing to his charity, not as an experiment in
altruism--nor sentimentally either, nor as a wistful child without a
childhood.
Perhaps, to him, she had once been all of these. He looked at her with
other eyes now, beginning, possibly, to realise something of the
terrific responsibility he was so lightly assuming.
He got up from his bench and went over to her; and the girl turned a
trifle pale with excitement and delight.
"Why did you come to me?" she asked breathlessly.
"I don't know."
"Did you know I was trying to make you get up and come to me?"
"What?"
"Yes! Isn't it curious? I looked at you and kept thinking, 'I want you
to get up and come to me! I want you to _come_! I _want_ you!' And
suddenly you got up and came!"
He looked at her out of curious, unsmiling eyes:
"It's your turn, after all, Dulcie."
"How is it my turn?"
"I drew you--in the beginning," he said slowly.
There was a silence. Then, abruptly, her heart began to beat very
rapidly, scaring her dumb with its riotous behaviour. When at length
her consternation subsided and her irregular breathing became
composed, she said, quite calmly:
"You and all that you are and believe in and care for very naturally
attracted me--drew me one evening to your open door.... It will always
be the same--you, and what of life and knowledge you represent--will
never fail to draw me."
"But--though I am just beginning to divine it--you also drew _me_,
Dulcie."
"How could that be?"
"You did. You do still. I am just waking up to that fact. And that
starts me wondering what I'd do without you."
"You don't have to do without me," she said, instinctively laying her
hand over her heart; it was beating so hard and, she feared, so loud.
"You can always have me when you wish. You know that."
"For a while, yes. But some day, when----"
"Always!"
He laughed without knowing why.
"You'll marry some day, Sweetness," he insisted.
She shook her head.
"Oh, yes you will----"
"No!"
"Why?"
But she only looked away and shook her head. And the silent motion of
dissent gave him an odd sense of relief.