The guests from Hohenlinden had departed from Foreland Farms; the
family had retired. Outside, under a sparkling galaxy of summer stars,
tall trees stood unstirring; indoors nothing stirred except the family
cat, darkly prowling on velvet-shod feet in eternal search of those
viewless things which are manifest only to the feline race--sorcerers
all, whether quadruped or human.
In various bedrooms upstairs lights went out, one after another, until
only two windows remained illuminated, one in the west wing, one in
the north.
For Dulcie, in her negligee and night robe, still sat by the open
window, chin resting on palm, her haunted gaze remotely lost somewhere
beyond the July stars.
And, in his room, Garry had arrived only as far as removing coat and
waistcoat in the process of disrobing for the night. For his mind was
still deeply preoccupied with Dulcie Soane and with the strange
expression of her face at the piano--and with the profoundly altered
visage of Murtagh Skeel.
And he was asking himself what could have happened between those two
in such a few minutes there at the piano in the music-room. For it was
evident to him that Skeel was labouring under poorly controlled
emotion, was dazed by it, and was recovering self-possession only by a
mighty effort.
And when Skeel had finally taken his leave and had gone away with the
Gerhardts, he suddenly stopped on the porch, returned to the
music-room, and, bending down, had kissed Dulcie's hand with a grace
and reverence which made the salute more of a serious ceremony than
the impulsive homage of a romantic poet's whim.
Considered by itself, the abrupt return and quaintly perfect salute
might have been taken as a spontaneous effervescence of that
delightful Celtic gallantry so easily stirred to ebullition by youth
and beauty. And for that it was accepted by the others after Murtagh
Skeel was gone; and everybody ventured to chaff Dulcie a little about
her conquest--merely the gentle humour of gentlefolk--a harmless word
or two, a smile in sympathy.
Garry alone saw in the girl's smile no genuine response to the light
badinage, and he knew that her serenity was troubled, her careless
composure forced.
Later, he contrived to say good-night to her alone, and gave her a
chance to speak; but she only murmured her adieux and went slowly away
up the stairs with Thessalie, not looking back.
* * * * *
Now, sitting there in his dressing-gown, briar pipe alight, he frowned
and pondered over the matter in the light of what he already knew of
Dulcie, of the dead mother who bore her, of the grotesquely impossible
Soane, of this man, Murtagh Skeel.
What had he and Dulcie found in common to converse about so earnestly
and so long there in the music-room? What had they talked about to
drive the colour from Dulcie's cheeks and alter Skeel's countenance so
that he had looked more like his own wraith than his living self?
That Dulcie's mother had known this man, had once, evidently, been in
love with him more or less, doubtless was revealed in their
conversation at the piano. Had Skeel enlightened Dulcie any further?
And on what subject? Soane? Her mother? Her origin--in case the child
had admitted ignorance of it? Was Dulcie, now, in possession of new
facts concerning herself? Were they agreeable facts? Were they
depressing? Had she learned anything definite in regard to her birth?
Her parentage? Did she know, now, who was her real father? Was the
obvious absurdity of Soane finally exploded? Had she learned what the
drunken Soane meant by asserting that her name was not Soane but
Fane?
His pipe burned out and he laid it aside, but did not rise to resume
his preparation for bed.
Then, somewhere from the unlighted depths of the house came the sound
of the telephone bell--at that hour of night always a slightly ominous
sound.
He got up and went down stairs, not troubling to switch on any light,
for the lustre of the starry night outside silvered every window and
made it possible for him to see his way.
At the clamouring telephone, finally, he unhooked the receiver:
"Hello?" he said. "Yes! Yes! Oh, is that _you_, Renoux? Where on earth
are you?... At Northbrook?... Where?... At the Summit House? Well, why
didn't you come here to us?... Oh!... No, it isn't very late. We
retire early at Foreland.... Oh, yes, I'm dressed.... Certainly....
Yes, come over.... Yes!... _Yes_!... I'll wait for you in the
library.... In an hour?... You bet. No, I'm not sleepy.... Sure
thing!... Come on!"
He hung up the receiver, turned, and made his way through the dusk
toward the library which was opposite the music-room across the big
entrance hall.
Before he turned on any light he paused to look out at the splendour
of the stars. The night had grown warmer; there was no haze, now, only
an argentine clarity in which shadowy trees stood mysterious and
motionless and the dim lawn stretched away to the distant avenue and
wall, lost against their looming border foliage.
Once he thought he heard a slight sound somewhere in the house behind
him, but presently remembered that the family cat held sway among the
mice at such an hour.
A little later he turned from the window to light a lamp, and found
himself facing a slim, white figure in the starry dusk.
"Dulcie!" he exclaimed under his breath.
"I want to talk to you."
"Why on earth are you wandering about at this hour?" he asked. "You
made me jump, I can tell you."
"I was awake--not in bed yet. I heard the telephone. Then I went out
into the west corridor and saw you going down stairs.... Is it all
right for me to sit here in my night dress with you?"
He smiled:
"Well, considering----"
"Of course!" she said hastily, "only I didn't know whether outside
your studio----"
"Oh, Dulcie, you're becoming self-conscious! Stop it, Sweetness. Don't
spoil things. Here--tuck yourself into this big armchair!--curl up!
There you are. And here I am----" dropping into another wide, deep
chair. "Lord! but you're a pretty thing, Dulcie, with your hair down
and all glimmering with starlight! We'll try painting you that way
some day--I wouldn't know how to go about it offhand, either. Maybe a
screened arc-lamp in a dark partition, and a peep-hole--I don't
know----"
He lay back in his chair, studying her, and she watched him in silence
for a while. Presently she sighed, stirred, placed her feet on the
floor as though preparing to rise. And he came out of his impersonal
abstraction:
"What is it you want to say, Sweetness?"
"Another time," she murmured. "I don't----"
"You dear child, you came to me needing the intimacy of our
comradeship--perhaps its sympathy. My mind was wandering--you are so
lovely in the starlight. But you ought to know where my heart is."
"Is it open--a little?"
"Knock and see, Sweetness."
"Well, then, I came to ask you--Mr. Skeel is coming to-morrow--to see
me--alone. Could it be contrived--without offending?"
"I suppose it could.... Yes, of course.... Only it will be conspicuous.
You see, Mr. Skeel is much sought after in certain circles--beginning to
be pursued and----"
"He asked me."
"Dear, it's quite all right----"
"Let me tell you, please.... He _did_ know my mother."
"I supposed so."
"Yes. He was the man. I want you to know what he told me.... I always
wish you to know everything that is in my--mind--always, for ever."
She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty, bare feet extended. One
silken sleeve of her negligee had fallen to the shoulder, revealing
the perfect symmetry of her arm. But he put from his mind the ever
latent artistic delight in her, closed his painter's eye to her
protean possibilities, and resolutely concentrated his mental forces
upon what she was now saying:
"He turns out to be the same man my mother wrote to--and who wrote to
her.... They were in love, then. He didn't say why he went away,
except that my mother's family disliked him.... She lived at a house
called Fane Court.... He spoke of my mother's father as Sir Barry
Fane...."
"That doesn't surprise me, Sweetness."
"Did _you_ know?"
"Nothing definite." He looked at the lovely, slender-limbed girl there
in the starry dusk. "I knew nothing definite," he repeated, "but there
was no mistaking the metal from which you had been made--or the mould,
either. And as for Soane----" he smiled.
She said:
"If my name is really Fane, there can be only one conclusion; some
kinsman of that name must have married my mother."
He said:
"Of course," very gravely.
"Then who was he? My mother never mentioned him in her letters. What
became of him? He must have been my father. Is he living?"
"Did you ask Mr. Skeel?"
"Yes. He seemed too deeply affected to answer me. He must have loved
my mother very dearly to show such emotion before me."
"What did you ask him, Dulcie?"
"After we left the piano?"
"Yes."
"I asked him that. I had only a few more moments alone with him before
he left. I asked him about my mother--to tell me how she looked--so I
could think of her more clearly. He has a picture of her on ivory. He
is to bring it to me and tell me more about her. That is why I must
see him to-morrow--so I may ask him again about my father."
"Yes, dear...." He sat very silent for a while, then rose, came over,
and seated himself on the padded arm of Dulcie's chair, and took both
her hands into his:
"Listen, Sweetness. You are what you are to me--my dear comrade, my
faithful partner sharing our pretty partnership in art; and, more than
these, Dulcie, you are my friend.... Never doubt that. Never forget
it. Nothing can alter it--nothing you learn about your origin can
exalt that friendship.... Nothing lessen it. Do you understand?
_Nothing_ can _lessen_ it, save only if you prove untrue to what you
are--your real self."
She had rested her cheek against his arm while he was speaking. It lay
there now, pressed closer.
"As for Murtagh Skeel," he said, "he is a charming, cultivated,
fascinating man. But if he attempts to carry out his agitator's
schemes and his revolutionary propaganda in this country, he is headed
for most serious trouble."
"Why does he?"
"Don't ask me why men of his education and character do such things.
They do; that's all I know. Sir Roger Casement is another man not
unlike Skeel. There are many, hot-hearted, generous, brave,
irrational. There is no use blaming them--no justice in it, either.
The history of British rule in Ireland is a matter of record.
"But, Dulcie, he who strikes at England to-day strikes at civilisation,
at liberty, at God! This is no time to settle old grievances. And to
attempt to do it by violence, by propaganda--to attempt a reckoning of
ancient wrongs in any way, to-day, is a crime--the crime of treachery
against Christ's teachings--of treason against Lord Christ Himself!"
After a long interval:
"You are going to this war quite soon. Mr. Westmore said so."
"I am going--with my country or without it."
"When?"
"When I finally lose patience and self-respect.... I don't know
exactly when, but it will be pretty soon."
"Could I go with you?"
"Do you wish to?"
She pressed her cheek against his arm in silence.
He said:
"That has troubled me a lot, Dulcie. Of course you could stay here; I
can arrange--I had come to a conclusion in regard to financial
matters----"
"I can't," she whispered.
"Can't what?"
"Stay here--take anything from you--accept without service in
return."
"What would you do?"
"I wouldn't care--if you--leave me here alone."
"But, Dulcie----"
"I know. You said it this evening. There will come a time when you
would not find it convenient to have me--around----"
"Dear, it's only because a man and a woman in this world cannot
continue anything of enduring intimacy without business as an excuse.
And even then, the pleasant informality existing now could not be
continued with anything except very serious disadvantage to you."
"You will grow tired of painting me," she said under her breath.
"No. But your life is all before you, Dulcie. Girls usually marry
sooner or later."
"Men do too."
"That's not what I meant----"
"You will marry," she whispered.
Again, at her words, the same odd uneasiness began to possess him as
though something obscure, unformulated as yet, must some day be
cleared up by him and decided.
"Don't leave me--yet," she said.
"I couldn't take you with me to France."
"Let me enlist for service. Could you be patient for a few months so
that I might learn something--anything!--I don't care what, if only I
can go with you? Don't they require women to scrub and do unpleasant
things--humble, unclean, necessary things?"
"You couldn't--with your slender youth and delicate beauty----"
"Oh," she whispered, "you don't know what I could do to be near you!
That is all I want--all I want in the world!--just to be somewhere not
too far away. I couldn't stand it, now, if you left me.... I couldn't
live----"
"Dulcie!"
But, suddenly, it was a hot-faced, passionate, sobbing child who was
clinging desperately to his arm and staunching her tears against
it--saying nothing more, merely clinging close with quivering lips.
"Listen," he said impulsively. "I'll give you time. If there's
anything you can learn that will admit you to France, come back to
town with me and learn it.... Because I don't want to leave you,
either.... There ought to be some way--some way----" He checked
himself abruptly, stared at the bowed head under its torrent of
splendid hair--at the desperate white little hands holding so fast to
his sleeve, at the slender body gathered there in the deep chair, and
all aquiver now.
"We'll go--together," he said unsteadily.... "I'll do what I can; I
promise.... You must go upstairs to bed, now.... Dulcie!... dear
girl...."
She released his arm, tried to get up from her chair obediently,
blinded by tears and groping in the starlight.
"Let me guide you----" His voice was strained, his touch feverish and
unsteady, and the convulsive closing of her fingers over his seemed to
burn to his very bones.
At the stairs she tried to speak, thanking him, asking pardon for her
tears, her loss of self-command, penitent, afraid that she had lowered
herself, strained his friendship--troubled him----
"No. I--_want_ you," he said in an odd, indistinct, hesitating voice....
"Things must be cleared up--matters concerning us--affairs----" he
muttered.
She closed her eyes a moment and rested both hands on the banisters as
though fatigued, then she looked down at him where he stood watching
her:
"If you had rather go without me--if it is better for you--less
troublesome----"
"I've told you," he said in a dull voice, "I want you. You must fit
yourself to go."
"You are so kind to me--so wonderful----"
He merely stared at her; she turned almost wearily to resume her
ascent.
"Dulcie!"
She had reached the landing above. She bent over, looking down at him
in the dusk.
"Did you understand?"
"I--yes, I think so."
"That I _want_ you?"
"Yes."
"It is true. I want you always. I'm just beginning to understand that
myself. Please don't ever forget what I say to you now, Dulcie; I want
you. I shall always want you. Always! As long as I live."
She leaned heavily on the newel-post above, looking down.
He could not see that her eyes were closed, that her lips moved in
voiceless answer. She was only a vague white shape there in the dusk
above him--a mystery which seemed to have been suddenly born out of
some poignant confusion of his own mind.
He saw her turn, fade into the darkness. And he stood there, not
moving, aware of the chaos within him, of shapeless questions being
evolved out of this profound disturbance--of an inner consciousness
groping with these questions--questions involving other questions and
menacing him with the necessity of decision.
After a while, too, he became conscious of his own voice sounding
there in the darkness:
"I am very near to love.... I have been close to it.... It would be
very easy to fall in love to-night.... But I am wondering--about
to-morrow.... And afterward.... But I have been very near--very near
to love, to-night...."
The front doorbell rang through the darkness.