Into the long stables at South Linden, that afternoon, Langly Sprowl's
trembling horse was led limping, his velvet flanks all torn by spurs and
caked with mud, his tender mouth badly lacerated.
As for his master, it seemed that the ruin of the expensive hunter and
four hours' violent and capricious exercise in his reeking saddle had
merely whetted his appetite for more violence; and he had been tramping
for an hour up and down the length of the library in his big sprawling
house when Mr. Kyte, his confidential secretary, came in without
knocking.
Sprowl hearing his step swung on him savagely, but Kyte coolly closed
the door behind him and turned the key.
"Ledwith is here," he said.
"Ledwith," repeated Sprowl, mechanically.
"Yes, he's on the veranda. They said you were not at home. He said he'd
wait. I thought you ought to know. He acts queerly."
Langly's protruding eyes became utterly expressionless.
"All right," he said in dismissal.
Kyte still lingered:
"Is there anything I can say or do?"
"If there was I'd tell you, wouldn't I?"
Kyte's lowered gaze stole upward toward his employer, sustained his
expressionless glare for a second, then shifted.
"Very well," he said unlocking the library door; "I thought he might be
armed, that's all."
"Kyte!"
Mr. Kyte turned on the door-sill.
"What do you mean by saying that?"
"Saying what?"
"That you think this fellow Ledwith may be armed?"
Kyte stood silent.
"I ask you again," repeated Sprowl, "why you infer that this man might
have armed himself to visit this house?"
Kyte's eyes stole upward, were instantly lowered. Sprowl walked over to
him.
"You're paid to act, not think; do you understand?" he said in a husky,
suppressed voice; but his long fingers were twitching.
"I understand," said Kyte.
Sprowl's lean head jerked; Kyte went; and the master of the house strode
back into the library and resumed his pacing.
Boots, spurs, the skirts of his riding coat, even his stock were stained
with mud and lather; and there was a spot or two across his sun-tanned
cheeks.
Presently he walked to the bay-window which commanded part of the west
veranda, and looking out through the lace curtains saw Ledwith sitting
there, his sunken eyes fixed on the westering sun.
The man's clothing hung loosely on his frame, showing bony angles at
elbow and knee. Burrs and black swamp-mud stuck to his knickerbockers
and golf-stockings; he sat very still save for a constant twitching of
the muscles.
The necessity for nervous and physical fatigue drove Sprowl back into
the library to tramp up and down over the soft old Saraband rugs, up and
down, to and fro, and across sometimes, ranging the four walls with the
dull, aimless energy of a creature which long caging is rendering
mentally unsound.
Then the monotony of the exercise began to irritate instead of allaying
his restlessness; he went to the bay-window again, saw Ledwith still
sitting there, stared at him with a ferocity almost expressionless, and
strode out into the great hallway and through the servant-watched doors
to the veranda.
Ledwith looked up, rose. "How are you, Langly?" he said.
Sprowl nodded, staring him insolently in the face.
There was a pause, then Ledwith's pallid features twitched into a
crooked smile.
"I wanted to talk over one or two matters with you before I leave," he
said.
"When are you leaving?"
"To-night."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know--to the Acremont Inn for a few days. After that--I don't
know."
Sprowl, perfectly aware that his footman was listening, walked out
across the lawn, and Ledwith went with him. Neither spoke. Shadows of
tall trees lay like velvet on the grass; the crests of the woods beyond
grew golden, their depths dusky and bluish. Everywhere robins were
noisily at supper, tilting for earthworms on the lawns; golden-winged
woodpeckers imitated them; in the late sunlight the grackles' necks
were rainbow tinted.
On distant hillcrests Sprowl could see his brood-mares feeding,
switching their tails against the sky; farther away sheep dotted
hillside pastures. Farther still the woods of Witch-Hollow lay banded
with sunshine and shadow. And Sprowl's protuberant gaze grew fixed and
expressionless as he swung on across the meadows and skirted the first
grove of oaks, huge outlying pickets of his splendid forest beyond.
"We can talk here," said Ledwith in a voice which sounded hoarse and
painful; and, swinging around on him, Sprowl saw that he was in
distress, fighting for breath and leaning against the trunk of an oak.
"What do you want to talk about?" said Sprowl.
The struggle for breath left Ledwith mute.
"Can't you walk and talk at the same time?" demanded Sprowl. "I need
exercise."
"I've got to rest."
"Well, then, what have you got to say?--because I'm going on. What's the
matter with you, anyway," he added sneeringly; "dope?"
"Partly," said Ledwith without resentment.
"What else?"
"Anxiety."
"Oh. Do you think you have a monopoly of that?"
Ledwith, without heeding the sneering question, went on, still resting
on his elbow against the tree-trunk:
"I want to talk to you, Langly. I want straight talk from you. Do I get
it?"
"You'll get it; go on," said Sprowl contemptuously.
"Then--my wife has returned."
"Your ex-wife," corrected Sprowl without a shade of expression in voice
or features.
"Yes," said Ledwith--"Mary. I left the house before she arrived, on my
way to Acremont across country. She and your aunt drove up together. I
saw them from the hill."
"Very interesting," said Sprowl. "Is that all?"
Ledwith detached himself from the tree and stood aside, under it,
looking down at the grass.
"You are going to marry her of course," he said.
"That," retorted Sprowl, "is none of your business."
"Because," continued Ledwith, not heeding him, "that is the only thing
possible. There is nothing else for her to do--for you to do. She knows
it, you know it, and so do I."
"I know all about it," said Sprowl coolly. "Is there anything else?"
"Only your word to confirm what I have just said."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your marriage with Mary."
"I think I told you that it was none of your business."
"Perhaps you did. But I've made it my business."
"May I ask why?"
"Yes, you may ask, Langly, and I'll tell you. It's because, recently,
there have been rumours concerning you and a Mrs. Leeds. That's the
reason."
Sprowl's hands, hanging at his sides, began nervously closing and
unclosing:
"Is that all, Ledwith?"
"That's all--when you have confirmed what I have said concerning the
necessity for your marriage with the woman you debauched."
"You lie," said Langly.
Ledwith smiled. "No," he said wearily, "I don't. She admitted it to me."
"That is another lie."
"Ask her. She didn't care what she said to me any more than she cared,
after a while, what she did to me. You made her yours, soul and body;
she became only your creature, caring less and less for concealment as
her infatuation grew from coquetry to imprudence, from recklessness to
effrontery.... It's the women of our sort, who, once misled, stop at
nothing--not the men. Prudence to the point of cowardice is the amatory
characteristic of your sort.... I don't mean physical cowardice," he
added, lifting his sunken eyes and letting them rest on Sprowl's
powerful frame.
"Have you finished?" asked the latter.
"In a moment, Langly. I am merely reminding you of what has happened.
Concerning myself I have nothing to say. Look at me. You know what I
was; you see what I am. I'm not whining; it's all in a lifetime. And the
man who is not fitted to take care of what is his, loses. That's all."
Sprowl's head was averted after an involuntary glance at the man before
him. His face was red--or it may have been the ruddy evening sun
striking flat across it.
Ledwith said: "You will marry her, of course. But I merely wish to hear
you say so."
Sprowl swung on him, his thick lips receding:
"I'll marry whom I choose! Do you understand that?"
"Of course. But you will choose to marry her."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes. Or--I'll kill you," he said seriously.
Langly stared at him, every vein suddenly dark and swollen; then his
bark of a laugh broke loose.
"I suppose you've got it in your pocket," he said.
Ledwith fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a dully blued weapon of
heavy calibre; and Sprowl walked slowly up to him, slapped his face,
took the revolver from him, and flung it into the woods.
"Now go home and punch yourself full of dope," he said; swung on his
heel, and sauntered off.
Ledwith looked after him, one bloodless hand resting on the cheek which
Sprowl had struck--watched him out of sight. Then, patiently, he started
to search for the weapon, dropping on all-fours, crawling, peering,
parting the ferns and bushes. But the sun was low and the woods dusky,
and he could not find what he was looking for. So he sat up on the
ground among the dead leaves of other years, drew from his pocket what
he needed, and slowly bared his scarred arm to the shoulder.
As for Sprowl, his vigorous tread lengthened to a swinging stride as he
shouldered his way through a thicket and out again into the open.
Already he scarcely remembered Ledwith at all, or his menace, or the
blow; scarcely even recollected that Mary Ledwith had returned or that
his aunt was within driving distance of his own quarters.
A dull hot anguish, partly rage, possessed him, tormenting brain and
heart incessantly and giving him no rest. His own clumsy madness in
destroying what he believed had been a certainty--his stupidity, his
loss of self-control, not only in betraying passion prematurely but in
his subsequent violence and brutality, almost drove him insane.
Never before in any affair with women had he forgotten caution in any
crisis; his had been a patience unshakable when necessary, a dogged,
driving persistence when the time came, the subtlety of absolute
inertness when required. But above all and everything else he has been a
master of patience, and so a master of himself; and so he had usually
won.
And now--now in this crisis--a crisis involving the loss of what he
cared for enough to marry--if he must marry to have his way with
her--what was to be done?
He tried to think coolly, but the cinders of rage and passion seemed to
stir and move with every breath he drew awaking the wild fire within.
He would try to reason and think clearly--try to retrace matters to the
beginning and find out why he had blundered when everything was in his
own hands.
It was his aunt's sudden policy that betrayed him into a premature
move--Mary Ledwith's return, and his aunt's visit. Mary Ledwith was
there to marry him; his aunt to make mischief unless he did what was
expected of him.
Leisurely but thoroughly he cursed them both as he walked back across
his lawn. But he was already thinking of Strelsa again when, as he
entered the wide hall, his aunt waddled across the rugs of the
drawing-room, pronouncing his name with unmistakable decision. And,
before the servants, he swallowed the greeting he had hoped to give her,
and led her into the library.
"Mercy on us, Langly!" she exclaimed, eyeing his reeking boots and
riding-breeches; "do you live like a pig up here?"
"I've been out," he said briefly. "What do you want?"
Her little green eyes lighted up, and her smile, which was fading, she
forced into a kind of fixed grin.
"Your polished and thoughtful inquiry is characteristic of you," she
said. "Mary is here, and I want you to come over to dinner."
"I'm not up to it," he said.
"I want you to come."
"I tell you I'm not up to it," he said bluntly.
"And I tell you that you'd better come."
"_Better_ come?" he repeated.
"Yes, _better_ come. More than that, Langly, you'd better behave
yourself, or I'll make New York too hot to hold you."
His prominent eyes were expressionless.
"Ah?" he remarked.
"Exactly, my friend. Your race is run. You've done one thing too
publicly to squirm out of the consequences. The town has stood for a
good deal from you. When that girl at the Frivolity Theatre shot
herself, leaving a letter directed to you, the limit of public patience
was nearly reached. You had to go abroad, didn't you? Well, you can't go
abroad this time. Neither London nor Paris nor Vienna nor Budapest--no,
nor St. Petersburg nor even Constantinople would stand you! Your course
is finished. If you've an ounce of brains remaining you know that you're
done for this time. So go and dress and come over to dinner.... And
don't worry; I'll keep away from you after you're married."
"You'll keep your distance before that," he said slowly.
"You're mistaken. Many people are afraid of you, but I never was and
never could be. You're no good; you never were. If you didn't lug my
name about with you I'd let you go to hell. You'll go there anyway, but
you'll go married first."
"I expect to."
"Married to Mary Ledwith," she said looking at him.
He picked up a cigar, examined it, yawned, then glanced at her:
"As I had--recently--occasion to tell Chester Ledwith, I'll marry whom I
please. Now suppose you clear out."
"Are you dining with us?"
"No."
"What time may we expect you to-morrow?"
"At no time."
"Do you intend to marry Mary Ledwith?"
"No."
"Is that final?"
"Yes!"
"Do you expect to marry anybody else?"
"Yes!" he shouted, partly rising from his chair, his narrow face
distorted. "Yes, I do! Now you know, don't you! Is the matter settled at
last? Do you understand clearly?--you fat-headed, meddlesome old fool!"
He sprang to his feet in an access of fury and began loping up and down
the room, gesticulating, almost mouthing out his hatred and
abuse--rendered more furious still by the knowledge of his own weakness
and disintegration--his downfall from that silent citadel of
self-control which had served him so many years as a stronghold for
defiance or refuge.
"You impertinent old woman!" he shouted, "if you don't keep your fat
nose out of my affairs I'll set a thousand men tampering with the
foundations of your investments! Keep your distance and mind your
business--I warn you now and for the last time, or else--" He swung
around on her, and the jaw muscles began to work--"or else I'll supply
the Yellows with a few facts concerning that Englishman's late father
and yourself!"
Mrs. Sprowl's face went pasty-white; in the fat, colourless expanse only
the deathless fury of her eyes seemed alive.
"So _that_ fetched you," he observed, coolly. "I don't want to give you
apoplexy; I don't want you messing up my house. I merely want you to
understand that it's dangerous to come sniffing and nosing around my
threshold. You _do_ understand, I guess."
He continued his promenade but presently came back to her:
"You know well enough who I want to marry. If you say or do one thing to
interfere I'll see that you figure in the Yellows."
He thought a moment; the colour slowly returned to her face. After a fit
of coughing she struggled to rise from her chair. He let her pant and
scuffle and kick for a while, then opened the door and summoned her
footman.
"I'm sorry I cannot drive with you this evening," he said quietly, as
the footman supported Mrs. Sprowl to her feet, "but I've promised the
Wycherlys. Pray offer my compliments and friendly wishes to Mrs.
Ledwith."
When she had gone he walked back into the library, picked up the
telephone and finally got Molly Wycherly on the wire.
"Won't you ask me to dinner?" he said. "I've an explanation to make to
Mrs. Leeds and I'd be awfully obliged to you."
There was a silence, then Molly said, deliberately:
"You must be a very absent-minded young man. I saw your aunt for a
moment this afternoon and she said that you are dining with her at Mrs.
Ledwith's."
"She was mistaken--" began Sprowl quietly, but Molly cut him short with
a laughing "good-bye," and hung up the receiver.
"That was Langly," she remarked, turning to Strelsa who was already
dressed for dinner and who had come into Molly's boudoir to observe the
hair-dressing and comprehensive embellishment of that young matron's
person by a new maid on probation.
Strelsa's upper lip curled faintly, then the happy expression returned,
and she watched the decorating of Molly until the maid turned her out in
the perfection of grooming from crown to toe.
There was nobody in the music-room. Molly turned again to Strelsa as
they entered:
"What a brute he is!--asking me to invite him here for dinner when Mary
Ledwith has just arrived."
"Did he do that?"
"Yes. And his excuse was that he had an explanation to make you. What a
sneaking way of doing it!"
Strelsa looked out of the dark window in silence.
Molly said: "I wish he'd go away, I never can look at him without
thinking of Chester Ledwith--and all that wretched affair.... Not that I
am sniffy about Mary--the poor little fool.... Anyway," she added
naïvely, "old lady Sprowl has fixed her status and now we all know how
to behave toward her."
Strelsa, arms clasped behind her back, came slowly forward from the
window:
"What a sorry civilisation," she said thoughtfully, "and what sorry
codes we frame to govern it."
"What?" sharply.
Strelsa looked at her, absently.
"Nobody seems to be ashamed of anything any more," she said, half to
herself. "The only thing that embarrasses us is what the outside world
may think of us. We don't seem to care what we think of each other."
Molly, a trifle red, asked her warmly what she meant.
"Oh, I was just realising what are the motives that govern us--the
majority of us--and how primitive they are. So many among us seem to be
moral throwbacks--types reappearing out of the mists of an ancient and
unmoral past.... Echoes of primitive ages when nobody knew any
better--when life was new, and was merely life and nothing
else--fighting, treacherous, cringing life which knew of nothing else to
do except to eat, sleep, and reproduce itself--bully the weaker, fawn on
the stronger, lie, steal, and watch out that death should not interfere
with the main chance."
Molly, redder than ever, asked her again what she meant.
"I don't know, dear.... How clean the woods and fields seem after a day
indoors with many people."
"You mean we all need moral baths?"
"I do."
Molly smiled: "For a moment I thought you meant that I do."
Strelsa smiled, too:
"You're a good wife, Molly; and a good friend.... I wish you had a
baby."
"I'm--going to."
They looked at each other a moment; then Strelsa caught her in her arms.
"Really?"
Molly nodded:
"That's why I worry about Jim taking chances in his aeroplane."
"He mustn't! He's got to stop! What can he be thinking of!" cried
Strelsa indignantly.
"But he--doesn't know."
"You haven't _told_ him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I--don't know how he'll take it."
"What?"
Molly flushed: "We didn't want one. I don't know what he'll say. We
didn't care for them----"
Strelsa's angry beauty checked her with its silent scorn; suddenly her
pretty head fell forward on Strelsa's breast:
"Don't look that way at me! I was a fool. How was I to know--anything?
I'd never had one.... You can't know whether you want a baby or not
until you have one.... I know now. I'm crazy about it.... I think it
would--would kill me if Jim is annoyed----"
"He won't be, darling!" whispered Strelsa. "Don't mind what he says
anyway. He's only a man. He never even knew as much about it as you did.
What do men know, anyway? Jim is a dear--just the regular sort of man
interested in business and sport and probably afraid that a baby might
interfere with both. What does he know about it?... Besides he's too
decent to be annoyed----"
"I'm afraid--I can't stand--even his indifference--" whimpered Molly.
Strelsa, holding her clasped to her breast, started to speak, but a
noise of men in the outer hall silenced her--the aviators returning from
their hangars and gathering in the billiard-room for a long one before
dressing.
"Wait," whispered Strelsa, gently disengaging herself--"wait just a
moment----"
And she was out in the hall in an instant, just in time to touch Jim on
the arm as he closed the file toward the billiard-room.
"Hello, Sweetness!" he said, pivoting on his heels and seizing her
hands. "Are you coming in to try a cocktail with us?"
"Jim," she said, "I want to tell you something."
"Shoot," he said. "And if you don't hurry I'll kiss you."
"Listen, please. Molly is in the music-room. _Make_ her tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"Ask her, Jim.... And, if you care one atom for her--be happy at what
she tells you--and tell her that you are. Will you?"
He stared at her, then lost countenance. Then he looked at her in a
panicky way and started to go, but she held on to him with
determination:
"Smile first!"
"Thunder! I----"
"Smile. Oh, Jim, isn't there any decency in men?"
His mind was working like mad; he stared at her, then through the
astonishment and consternation on his good-looking features a faint grin
broke out.
"All right," she whispered, and let him go.
Molly, idling at the piano, heard his tread behind her, and looked up
over her shoulder.
"Hello, Jim," she said, faintly.
"Hello, ducky. Strelsa says you have something to tell me."
"I--Jim?"
"So she said. So I cut out a long one to find out what it is. What's up,
ducky?"
Molly's gaze grew keener: "Did that child tell you?"
"She said that you had something to tell me."
"_Did_ she?"
"No! Aren't you going to tell me either?"
He dropped into a chair opposite her; she sat on the piano-stool
considering him for a while in silence. Then, dropping her arms with a
helpless little gesture:
"We are going to have a baby. Are you--annoyed?"
For a second he sat as though paralysed, and the next second he had her
in his arms, the grin breaking out from utter blankness.
"You're a corker, ducky!" he whispered. "You for me all the time!"
"Jim!... Really?"
"Surest thing you know! Which is it?--boy or--Oh, I beg your pardon,
dear--I'm not accustomed to the etiquette. But I'm delighted, ducky,
overwhelmed!"
"Oh, Jim! I'm so glad. And I'm crazy about it--perfectly mad about
it.... And you're a dear to care----"
"Certainly I care! What do you take me for--a wooden Indian!" he
exclaimed virtuously. "Come on and we'll celebrate----"
"But, Jim! We can't _tell_ people."
"Oh--that's the christening. I forgot, ducky. No, we can't talk about it
of course. But I'll do anything you say----"
"Will you?"
"Will I? Watch me!"
"Then--then _don't_ take out the Stinger for a while. Do you mind,
dear?"
"What!" he said, jaw dropping.
"I can't bear it, Jim. I was a good sport before; you know I was. But my
nerve has gone. I can't take chances now; I _want_ you to see--it----"
After a moment he nodded.
"Sure," he said. "It's like Lent. You've got to offer up something....
If you feel that way--" he sighed unconsciously--"I'll lock up the
hangar until----"
"Oh, darling! Will you?"
"Yes," said that desolate young man, and kissed his wife without a
scowl. He had behaved pretty well--about like the majority of husbands
outside of popular romances.
The amateur aeronauts left in the morning before anybody was stirring
except the servants--Vincent Wier, Lester Caldera, the Van Dynes and the
rest, bag, baggage, and, later, two aeroplanes packed and destined for
Barent Van Dyne's Long Island estate where there was to be some serious
flying attempted over the flat and dusty plains of that salubrious
island.
Sir Charles Mallison was leaving that same day, later; and there were to
be no more of Jim's noisy parties; and now under the circumstances, no
parties of Molly's, either; because Molly was becoming nervous and
despondent and a mania for her husband possessed her--the pretty
resurgence of earlier sentiment which, if not more than comfortably
dormant, buds charmingly again at a time like this.
Also she wanted Strelsa, and nobody beside these two; and although she
liked parties of all sorts including Jim's sporting ones, and although
she liked Sir Charles immensely, she was looking forward to comfort of
an empty house with only her husband to decorate the landscape and
Strelsa to whisper to in morbid moments.
For Chrysos was going to Newport, Sir Charles and her maid accompanying
her as far as New York from where the Baronet meant to sail the next
day.
His luggage had already gone; his man was packing when Sir Charles
sauntered out over the dew-wet lawn, a sprig of sweet-william in his
lapel, tall, clear-skinned, nice to look upon.
What he really thought of what he had seen in America, of the sort of
people who had entertained him, of the grotesque imitation of exotic
society--or of a certain sort of it--nobody really knew. Doubtless his
estimate was inclined to be a kindly one, for he was essentially that--a
philosophical, chivalrous, and modest man; and if his lines had fallen
in places where vulgarity, extravagance, and ostentation
predominated--if he had encountered little real cultivation, less
erudition, and almost nothing worthy of sympathetic interest, he never
betrayed either impatience or contempt.
He had come for one reason only--the same reason that had brought him to
America for the first time--to ask Strelsa Leeds to marry him.
He was man enough to understand that she did not care for him that way,
soldier enough to face his fate, keen enough, long since, to understand
that Quarren meant more to the woman he cared for than any other man.
Cool, self-controlled, he watched every chance for an opening in his own
behalf. No good chance presented itself. So he made one and offered
himself with a dignity and simplicity that won Strelsa's esteem but not
her heart.
After that he stayed on, not hoping, but merely because he liked her.
Later he remained because of a vague instinct that he might as well be
on hand while Strelsa went through the phase with Langly Sprowl. But he
was a wise man, and weeks ago he had seen the inevitable outcome. Also
he had divined Quarren's influence in the atmosphere, had watched for
it, sensed it, seen it very gradually materialise in a score of acts and
words of which Strelsa herself was totally unconscious.
Then, too, the afternoon before, he had encountered Sprowl riding
furiously with reeking spurs, after his morning's gallop with Strelsa;
and he had caught a glimpse of the man's face; and that was enough.
So there was really nothing to keep him in America any longer. He wanted
to get back to his own kind--into real life again, among people of real
position and real elegance, where live topics were discussed, where live
things were attempted or accomplished, where whatever was done, material
or immaterial, was done thoroughly and well.
There was not one thing in America, now, to keep him there--except a
warm and kindly affection for his little friend Chrysos Lacy with whom
he had been thrown so constantly at Witch-Hollow.
Strolling across the lawn, he thought of her with warm gratitude. In her
fresh and unspoiled youth he had found relief from a love unreturned, a
cool, sweet antidote to passion, a balm for loneliness most exquisite
and delightful.
The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming
surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made
few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few.
Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find
how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age
and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between
them.
Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a
while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that
a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to
present himself at so early an hour.
A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not
yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him.
Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a
dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the
colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered
up in a big cane-backed chair.
"I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here
because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down."
He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down
compassionately:
"Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it.
The old lady peered up at him:
"You're sailing to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," he said, gravely.
"When do you return?"
"I have made no plans to return."
"You mean to say that you've given up the fight?"
"There was never any fight," he said.
Mrs. Sprowl scowled:
"Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?"
"Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better
than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can
scarcely question her decision."
"Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew
of mine?" she demanded.
"No," he said.
"Then--do you mean young Quarren?"
"I think I do," he said smiling.
"I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad
that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into
Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of
me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family
scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----"
She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they
snapped open again with the old fire undiminished:
"Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him....
But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?"
"I'm afraid not."
"You are going back into everything, I suppose."
"Yes."
"To forget her, I suppose."
He said pleasantly:
"I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman
as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a
privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful."
Mrs. Sprowl glared at him; and, as she thought of Langly, of Strelsa, of
the collapse of her own schemes, the baffled rage began to smoulder in
her tiny green eyes till they dwindled and dwindled to a pair of
phosphorescent sparks imbedded in fat.
"I did my best," she said hoarsely. "I'm not defeated if you're not. Say
the word and I'll start something--" And suddenly she remembered
Langly's threat involving the memory of a dead man whose only son now
stood before her.
She knew that her words were vain, her boast empty; she knew there was
nothing more for her to do--nothing even that Sir Charles might do
toward winning Strelsa without also doing the only thing in the world
which could really terrify herself. Even at the mere thought of it she
trembled again, and fear forced her to speech born of fear:
"Perhaps it is best for you to go," she faltered. "Absence is a last
resort.... It may be well to try it----"
He bent over and took her hand:
"There is no longer even a last resort," he said kindly. "I am quite
reconciled. She is different from any other woman; ours was and is a
high type of friendship.... Sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether
it ever could have been any more than that to either of us."
Mrs. Sprowl looked up at him, her face so altered and softened that his
own grew graver.
"You are like your father," she said unsteadily. "It was my privilege to
share his friendship.... And his friendship was of that
kind--high-minded, generous, pure--asking no more than it gave--no more
than it gave----"
She laid her cheek against Sir Charles's hands, let it rest there an
instant, then averting her face motioned his dismissal.
He went with a pleasant and gentle word or two; she sat bolt upright
among her silken pillows, lips grimly compressed, but on her tightly
closed eyelids tears trembled.
Sir Charles drew a long deep breath in the outer sunshine, filling his
lungs with the fragrant morning air. Hedges still glistened with
spiders' tapestry; the birds which sulked all day in their early
moulting-fever still sang a little in the cool of the morning, and he
listened to them as he walked while his quiet, impartial eye ranged
over the lovely rolling country, dew-washed and exquisite under a
cloudless sky.
Far away he saw the chimneys of Langly Sprowl's sprawling country-seat,
smoke rising from two, but he saw nothing of the angry horseman of the
day before. Once, in the distance on the edge of a copse, he saw a man
creeping about on all-fours, evidently searching for some lost object in
the thicket. Looking back from a long way off he saw him still searching
on his hands and knees, and wondered at his patience, half inclined to
go back and aid him.
But about that time one of Sprowl's young bulls came walking over toward
him with such menacing observations and deportment that Sir Charles
promptly looked about him for an advance to the rear-front--a manoeuvre
he had been obliged to learn in the late Transvaal unpleasantness.
And at the same moment he saw Chrysos Lacy.
There was no time for explanations; clearly she was too frightened to
stir; so he quietly picked her up on his advance to the rear-front,
carrying her in the first-aid style approved by the H. B. M. medical
staff, and scaled the five-bar fence as no barrier had ever been scaled
at Aldershot or Olympia by any warrior in khaki or scarlet tunic.
"Th-thank you," said Chrysos, unwinding her arms from the baronet's neck
as the bull came trotting up on the other side of the fence and bellowed
at them. Not the slightest atom of fright remained, only a wild-rose
tint in her cheeks. She considered the bull, absently, patted a tendril
of hair into symmetry; but the breeze loosened it again, and she let it
blow across her cheek.
"We should have been in South Africa together," said Sir Charles.
"We manoeuvre beautifully as a unit."
[Illustration: "'And it is to be your last breakfast.'"]
The girl laughed, then spying more wild strawberries--the quest of which
had beguiled her into hostile territory--dropped on her knees and began
to explore.
The berries were big and ripe--huge drops of crimson honey hanging
heavily, five to a stalk. The meadow-grass was red with them, and Sir
Charles, without more ado, got down on all-fours and started to gather
them with all the serious and thorough determination characteristic of
that warrior.
"You're not to eat any, yet," said Chrysos.
"Of course not; they're for your breakfast I take it," he said.
"For yours."
He straightened up on his knees: "For mine?"
"Certainly."
"You didn't go wandering afield at this hour to pick wild strawberries
for _my_ breakfast!" he said incredulously.
"Yes, I did," said the girl; and continued exploring, parting the high
grass-stems to feel for and detach some berry-loaded stem.
"Do you know," he said, returning to his labours, "that I am quite
overcome by your thought of me?"
"Why? We are friends.... And it is to be your last breakfast."
There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, but her pretty face was
carefully turned away so that if there was to be anything to notice in
the features he could not notice it.
"I'll miss you a lot," he said.
"And I you, Sir Charles."
"You'll be over, I suppose."
"I suppose so."
"That will be jolly," he said, sitting back on his heels to rest, and to
watch her--to find pleasure in her youth and beauty as she moved
gracefully amid the fragrant grasses, one little sun-tanned hand
clasping a great bouquet of the crimson fruit which nodded heavily amid
tufts of trefoil leaves.
In the barred shadow of the pasture-fence they rested from their
exertions, she rearranging their bouquets of berries and tying them fast
with grass-stems.
"It has been a pleasant comradeship," he said.
"Yes."
"You have found it so, too?"
"Yes."
She appeared to be so intent, so absorbed on her bouquet tying that he
involuntarily leaned nearer to watch her. A fragrance faintly fresh
seemed to grow in the air around him as the hill-breeze stirred her
hair. If it came from the waving grass-tops, or the honeyed fruit or
from her hair, or perhaps from those small, smooth hands, he did not
know.
For a long while they sat there without speaking, she steadily intent on
her tying. Then, while still busy with a cluster, her slim fingers
hesitated, wavered, relaxed; her hands fell to her lap, and she remained
so, head bent, motionless.
After a moment he spoke, but she made no answer.
Through and through him shot the thrilling comprehension of that
exquisite avowal, childlike in its silent directness, charming in its
surprise. A wave of tenderness and awe mounted within him, touching his
bronzed cheeks with a deeper colour.
"If you will, Chrysos," he said in a still voice.
She lifted her head and looked directly at him, and in her questioning
gaze there was nothing of fear--merely the question.
"I can't bear to have you go," she said.
"I can't go--alone."
"Could you--care for me?"
"I love you, Chrysos."
Her eyes widened in wonder:
"You--you don't _love_ me--do you?"
"Yes," he said, "I do. Will you marry me, Chrysos?"
Her fascinated gaze met his in silence. He drew her close to his
shoulder; she laid her cheek against it.