"How am I this morning? Oh yes, it's all very well. But you don't care
a straw how I am, or what becomes of me--now!"
Thus Violet Avory, in the softest, most plaintive tone, at the same time
lifting her eyelashes in just one quick, reproachful glance. The shaft
was effective. It brought down the bird at once. Renshaw stopped.
"I don't think it's quite kind of you to say that, Miss Avory," he
answered, a trifle nettled, for all that killing glance; for all that
beseeching, cooing tone. "You know you do not believe what you are
saying."
She had been leaning over the gate which led out of the flower garden in
front of the house. He was passing out to set off on his numerous
self-imposed duties, having for their object the keeping everything
straight during his friend's absence. The morning was young still--not
quite ten o'clock. He was hurrying by with a pleasant inquiry as to her
well-being, when arrested by her speech as above.
"Thank you," she answered, "I do happen to believe it, though. You
never come near me now--in fact, you avoid me like the plague. We have
not had one talk together since you came back. However, you don't
care--now, as I said before."
To an unprejudiced hearer conversant with the state of affairs, this was
pretty thick. For by that time it was manifest to all that the only
person who had any chance of a "talk together" with the speaker--as she
euphemistically put it--was Sellon; and long before it was to all thus
manifest the fact was painfully evident to Renshaw Fanning.
"If it is as you say, I don't think you can blame me," he answered. "I
thought my leaving you alone was exactly what you would wish. And that
idea you yourself seemed to bear out both by word and act."
"Do you think I have so many--friends, that I can bear to part with one,
Renshaw?"
Her tone was soft, pleading--suggestive of a tinge of despair. The
velvety eyes seemed on the point of brimming, as her glance
reproachfully met his, and a delicate flush came into her cheeks. She
was standing beneath a cactus, whose great prismatic blossoms in the
background hung like a shower of crimson stars, one of them just
touching her dark hair. To the unprejudiced witness again, conversant
with the facts, Violet Avory, standing there amid the sensuous falling
of gorgeous blossoms, would have recalled some graceful, purring,
treacherous feline, beautiful in its satin-skinned curves, yet withal
none the less deadly of intent towards the foolish creatures who should
constitute its prey. In this man, however, in spite of the sharp
awakening which the last couple of weeks had brought with them, her arts
begat no repulsion. There was no breaking away from the old spell so
easily. A mist floated before his eyes, and the old tremble came into
his voice, as he replied--
"Friends! I should have thought you had plenty. For instance--"
"For instance what?"
"Well, I was going to say, look how anxious we have all been to see you
become your old self again; but it struck me that after what you begun
by saying I had better not."
"Will you do something if I ask you?" she said suddenly.
"Certainly, if it is anything within my power."
"I want you to take me for a ride--now, this morning. Will you?"
"With pleasure," he answered, brightening up--all prudent resolves
scattered to the winds.
"I think it will do me good. Besides--I want to talk to you. Now, I'll
go and get ready. But mind--don't let's have any of the others, or it
will be no use. Make some excuse about there being no horses or
something."
And she started off indoors, while he went round to see about getting
the horses up from the large paddock, wherein a certain supply of the
noble animal was always kept for home use.
Violet was not much of a rider; in fact, she was rather timid in the
saddle. But she had a good seat for all show purposes, and being one of
those girls who do everything gracefully, she looked as well on
horseback as anywhere else.
In the eyes of her present escort, this lovely sunshiny morning, she
looked more than bewitching; which being so, it is not surprising that
all his strongly formed and salutary resolutions should rapidly ooze out
at his finger-ends. For he had half-unconsciously formed many
resolutions, not the least of which was that he would think no more of
Violet Avory--at any rate, except as a friend.
Though his strong, self-contained nature had rendered him an easy prey
to her wiles--easier because so thorough, once he had succumbed--yet it
supplied a wholesome counterbalance. Which counterbalance lay in an
unswerving sense of self-respect.
Try as she would, Violet had not been able to conceal altogether her
partiality for Sellon. All her sage precepts to the latter
notwithstanding, she had more than once allowed her prudence to lull.
The sharp precocity of the children had discovered their secret in no
time, and, disliking her as they did, they had, we may be sure, been at
no pains to hold their prying, chattering little tongues. Then the
whole thing had become common property to all around.
That she should prefer Sellon seemed to Renshaw quite a natural thing.
In his single-heartedness, his utter freedom from egotism, he was
sublimely unconscious of any advantages which he himself might possess
over the other. She had rejected him unequivocally, for he had once put
his fate to the test. She was therefore perfectly free to show
preference for whosoever she pleased. The one consideration which
caused him to feel sore at times--and he would not have been human had
it been otherwise--was the consciousness that he himself was the agency
through which the two had been thrown together. Many a man would have
reflected rather bitterly on the strange freak of fortune which had once
appointed him the preserver of his successful rival's life. But Renshaw
Fanning's nature was too noble to entertain any such reflection. If it
occurred to him, he would cast forth the idea in horror, as something
beyond all words contemptible.
This being so, he had made up his mind to accept the inevitable, and had
succeeded so well--outwardly, at least--as to give his tormentor some
colour for the opening words of our present chapter. But he little knew
Violet Avory. That insatiable little heart-breaker fully believed in
eating her cake _and_ having it, too. She was not going to let it be
said that any man had given her up, least of all this one. The giving
up must come from her own side.
"How glum you are, Renshaw," she began, at last. "You have said nothing
but `yes' or `no' ever since we left the house. And that was at least
half an hour ago."
He started guiltily. The use of his Christian name was an artfully
directed red-hot shot from her battery. In public it was always "Mr
Fanning." And they had not met otherwise than in public since his
return.
"Am I?" he echoed. "I really beg your pardon, but I am afraid I must
be."
"First of all, where are you going to take me?"
"We had better ride up to the head of the Long Kloof. It is only a
gradual ascent, and an easier ride for you."
This was agreed to, and presently they were winding between the
forest-clad spurs of the hills; on, leisurely, at a foot's-pace; the
great rolling seas of verdure, spangled with many a fantastic-hued
blossom, sweeping down to the path itself; the wild black-mouthed gorges
echoing the piping call of birds in the brake, and the sullen
deep-throated bark of the sentinel baboon, squatted high overhead.
But the ride, so far from doing her good, seemed, judging from results,
to be exercising a still further damping effect upon Violet's spirits.
It had become her turn now to answer in monosyllables, as her companion
tried to interest her in the scenery and surroundings. All of a sudden
she wildly burst into tears.
Down went Renshaw's wise resolutions, the result of a painful and severe
course of self-striving, like a house of cards. The sight of her grief
seemed more than he could bear.
"Good heavens! Violet--darling--what is it? Why are you unhappy?"
The tone was enough. The old tremor of passion struggling to repress
itself. Had she forged this weapon deliberately, Violet must have
rejoiced over its success. But this time the outburst was genuine.
"Oh, I sometimes wish I could die!" she answered, as soon as she could
control her voice. "Then there would be a peaceful ending to it all, at
any rate."
"Ending to what? You have been very much shaken, dear--since that
unfortunate skirmish the other night. But you must try and forget that
and become your own bright self again. It cannot be that you have any
real trouble on your mind?"
"Oh, Renshaw--you have been so hard to me of late--so cold and silent,
as if you didn't care so much as to speak to me--and I have felt it so--
so much. Ah, but you don't believe me."
The man's face grew white. What did this mean? Had he been deceiving
himself all this time? While he had thought she was trying once more to
whistle him back to her lure, to amuse herself with him and his most
sacred feelings as a mere pastime during the other's absence--could it
be after all that she had merely been playing off the other against
him--piqued at the outward cooling of his attentions? A tumultuous rush
of feeling went through his heart and brain. But like a douche of cold
water upon the fainting patient came her next words, bringing him to
with a kind of mental gasp.
"You have felt it so much?" he echoed, quickly.
"Yes. I could not bear the thought of losing such a staunch,
true-hearted friend as you would be--as you are. You don't know how I
value the idea of your sympathy."
Crash went the newly born resuscitation of his hopes--scattered to
fragments--shivered into empty nothingness by just one word. "Friend!"
Hateful word in such conjunction! His voice seemed numbed and strained
as he rejoined--
"I am sorry you should think of regarding me as anything less than a
friend--and you must know that you could never lack my sympathy. Then
there is something troubling you?"
"Now you are angry with me. Oh, Renshaw--and I am so miserable. You
speak in such a cold, severe tone. And I thought you would have been so
different."
"God forgive me if I should have seemed to be angry with you," he
replied. "But--how can I help you? You have not told me what your
trouble is."
"Renshaw, I believe you can be as secret as the grave. It concerns
myself--and another. But nothing that you can do can remove it.
Nothing but misery can come of it, if I do not die myself, that is."
"One word, Violet. You are sure nothing I can do will help you? I do
not wish to force your confidence, remember."
"Nothing," was the despairing answer. "Only this, Renshaw. Promise
that you will stand my friend--Heaven knows I may need it and do need
it--whatever others may say or do. Promise that if ever you can help me
you will."
Their eyes met--then their hands.
"I promise both things," he answered gravely.
But, as they turned their horses' heads to ride homewards, there was a
heavy heart within Renshaw Fanning's breast; a heart full of sad and
heavy despair. His love for this girl was no mere fleeting passion, but
the terribly earnest and concentrated abandonment of a man of mature
years and strong feelings. Now there was an end of everything. He had
as good as heard from her own lips that her affections were bound up
with another, and who that other was his perceptions left him no room
for doubt. But why, then, should all the misery ensue at which she had
hinted? Could it be that her preference was but inadequately returned?
Or was there some obstacle in the way--lack of means, opposition of
parents, or similar difficulties, which are apt to seem to those most
closely concerned so insurmountable under the circumstances? In his own
mind, he had no doubt but that things would all come right sooner or
later, and said as much.
But then, you see, they were at cross purposes, as people who deal in
veiled hints and half-confidences well-nigh invariably are.
And the promise thus deliberately uttered during that sunny morning's
ride in the Long Kloof, will he ever be called upon to take it up?
We shall see.