REFUSAL
The process of making a tour of the _Sphinx_ had been a lengthy one. The
yacht was beautifully appointed, and there had been much to examine and
admire. Brett, who loved every inch of her, from the marvellous little gold
figure of a sphinx, which he had had specially designed and carved as a
mascot, down to the polished knobs and buttons in the engine-room, had
expatiated with considerable length and fervour upon her various beauties
and advantages, and by the time he and Ann emerged on to the deck once more
it was to find it deserted by the rest of the party.
Brett moved a couple of deck-chairs into a sheltered corner.
"You must be tired," he said remorsefully. "I've kept you standing about an
unconscionable time while I yarned on about my old tub. If you'll sit down
here, I'll go and fetch you a wrap."
Ann subsided into one of the chairs not unthankfully.
"But I don't want a wrap," she protested.
"You will, presently. You must remember it's September, even though it is a
warm evening."
He departed on his errand, returning shortly with a wrap for her shoulders,
together with a light rug which he proceeded to tuck carefully round her.
She was reminded of the first occasion on which they had met, when the
charming way in which he had waited upon Lady Susan had moved her to the
reflection that he might be rather an adept in the art of spoiling any
woman. But she had not forgotten that he would want to master her first--as
he had mastered the bay mare, afterwards coaxing her into friendship.
They conversed desultorily for a time. Then, tossing away the cigarette he
was smoking, Brett shot an abrupt question at her.
"Well, so you like the yacht?" he demanded.
She nodded.
"I think it's just perfect," she answered cordially.
"I'm glad. Because"--he leaned forward and looked at her intently with a
curious sparkling light in his eyes--"I hope you'll spend a good deal of
time on board her."
"I?" Ann endeavoured to speak as casually as possible, warned by that
sudden danger-signal.
"Yes. Wouldn't you enjoy cruising about the world a bit?"
"Are you thinking of inviting us all to go for a trip in the _Sphinx_? I'm
afraid," shaking her head, "we're most of us much too busy people to go
racing off half across the world at a moment's notice."
"I wasn't thinking of inviting you all," he returned coolly. "Even if the
yacht could accommodate you. I was limiting the proposed yachting party to
you--and me."
Ann moved restlessly.
"Don't be absurd, Brett."
He laughed--that gay, triumphant laughter of his which always made her a
little afraid. It sounded so sure, so carelessly confident.
"Then don't fence with me any longer," he retorted. "What's the use of
pretending, anyway?"
"Pretending? I'm afraid I don't understand." She threw a quick, dismayed
glance down the length of the deck, devoutly wishing that some one would
come along and interrupt them. But there was nobody in sight except one of
the crew--and he was keeping his eyes very studiously turned away from the
corner where they were seated.
"You don't understand?" Brett's voice roughened a little. "Haven't I made
it clear what I want? I want _you_--"
"No, no!" Ann jumped up from her chair precipitately. "Don't say it, Brett!
Please don't. I--I don't want to hear."
There was a note of urgent pleading in her hurried speech, but if he heard
it he paid no attention. He was on his feet as quickly as she was. Perhaps
if she had looked at him she would have realised that she was drawing upon,
herself the very thing she was trying to avoid. But she had averted her
face, afraid of the blue flame of his eyes, and his quick movement, silent
and certain as the leap of a panther, filled her with a sudden irrational
terror. She started to run. Then, her feet entangled in the rug which had
slipped to the floor when she sprang up from her seat, she stumbled and
pitched helplessly forward.
But she did not reach the ground. Brett's arms closed round her like a vice
of steel, and the next moment she felt his lips on hers--on her eyes, her
throat, the gleaming curve of moon-white shoulder, straining against them
in fierce, possessive kisses that seemed to drain her of all strength to
resist.
At last:
"Now do you understand?" he demanded hoarsely. "I love you!... God in
heaven! I wonder if you know how much I love you!"
"No, no!" She struggled to free herself from his arms, but he held her in a
relentless grip that no power of hers could fight against.
"Let me go!" she gasped, finding herself helpless against him.
His eyes burned down on her.
"I'll let you go when you promise to be my wife--not before. Say you love
me, Ann!"
"But I don't--I don't love you at all. Let me go, Brett!" She made another
futile effort to release herself, but his grasp never slackened.
"You _shall_ love me!" he declared violently.
With the imperative need of the moment Ann found her courage returning. She
realised now that it was to be a battle between them, and she was filled
with a cold fury against this man who tried to enforce his will on hers.
Suddenly she ceased to struggle, and, bending her head back so that she
could see his face, confronted him with a cool, proud defiance.
"I shall hate you if you don't release me at once," she said quietly.
Her face, so close below his own, was milk-white in the moonlight, and her
hair glimmered with strange, lurking lights. Wavering gold of hair and eyes
and scarlet line of lips--they roused the devil in him. His mouth crushed
down on hers once more.
"You may hate me--but, all the same, you'll marry me! I swear it!" he said
with grim assurance.
"I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth."
It was very quietly uttered, but the absolute conviction of her answer
seemed to arrest him. He loosened his clasp of her body, but with the--same
movement his fingers slid to her wrist, prisoning it.
"Who would you marry?" he demanded.
She stood perfectly still, unresisting to the grip of his hand on her
wrist. There was a mute suggestion of scorn in this very surrender to
physical coercion, a poise that asserted an utter freedom of spirit--a
freedom of which he could not rob her.
"You don't expect an answer to that question, do you?" she returned.
"Is it young Brabazon--Tony Brabazon?" he pursued, ignoring her reply and
speaking with an odd kind of eagerness.
Ann was silent. The instinct of her sex was working in her--the instinct to
conceal her real hurt, to throw dust in the eyes of the man who was seeking
to tear her secret from her. So she remained silent, and the sudden gleam
in Brett's eyes showed that he believed he was answered.
"Then you have thought of marrying--Tony Brabazon?" he said searchingly.
"Perhaps I have," she admitted, reflecting with a brief flash of humour
that, in this particular instance, the simple truth was quite the most
misleading thing imaginable.
Brett regarded her with a peculiar expression in which resentment and a
certain need of indulgence were strangely mingled.
"And you've thought better of it?" he continued, rather as though he were
stating a fact of which he had some intrinsic knowledge. Ann felt a trifle
puzzled. He and Tony were only card-room acquaintances, and it seemed
unlikely that the latter would have confided in him. Yet Brett certainly
spoke as though his cognisance of how matters stood betwixt herself and
Tony were based on something more substantial than mere guesswork.
"That, also, is possible," she answered non-committally.
"And just as well," commented Brett. "He's a harum-scarum rake of a boy.
All the same, as I told you once before, the past doesn't matter to me.
It's the future that counts."
He paused, as though he expected her to volunteer some reply. But she
merely eyed him with a look of steady indifference.
"You understand, Ann?" he said, with a species of urgency in his tones.
"It sounds quite simple," she replied shortly. "I think I understand plain
English--though what you say doesn't interest me. Do you mind releasing my
wrist, now?"
"You won't run away if I do?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Where could I run to--on the yacht? Besides, I've no wish for every one to
know about this ridiculous scene," she added scornfully, with a downward
glance at her prisoned wrist.
His eyes glinted as he released his hold, but he allowed the contemptuous
speech to pass without remark. She lifted her arm, frictioning her wrist
where his grip had scored a red mark round it. A tumult of anger against
him seethed inside her. Her lips felt soiled and she put up her hand and
rubbed them distastefully. He interpreted the action with lightning
swiftness.
"No," he said, a note of grim triumph in his voice. "You can't undo it."
"I wish," she said with quiet intensity, "I wish I'd never set foot on
board your yacht."
"It wouldn't have made a bit of difference," he assured her unconcernedly.
"If it hadn't happened here, it would have happened somewhere else. Just as
it doesn't matter in the least your refusing me--by the way, I suppose I'm
to understand you _have_ refused me?"--mockingly.
"Certainly I've refused you."
"Very good. But even that won't make an atom of difference. You're going to
marry me, you know, in the long run."
"I'm not--" she began, then checked herself wearily. "Oh, don't let's go
over it all again!" She was very pale, and there were dark shadows of
fatigue beneath her eyes.
"We won't," he replied amicably. "We'll go down and see how those reckless
penny-a-hundred gamblers are getting on, instead."
With one of the amazingly sudden transitions of which Ann had already
discovered he was capable, he dismissed the whole matter as though it
were of no importance, and, gathering up her wraps, preceded her in the
direction of the companion-way. Here they were met by the bridge players.
Their game finished, they were all coming up on deck, laughing and talking
as they came. Ann drew back, nervously unprepared for the sudden encounter,
but Brett covered her momentary confusion by genial inquiries as to who had
won.
"I've won two and fivepence," announced Miss Caroline in satisfied tones.
She appeared supremely contented with the evening's harvest.
"These tiresome people are talking of going, Brett," complained Lady Susan.
"Do stop them."
"Of course I'll stop them," he replied promptly. "They've all got to drink
my health and good luck to the _Sphinx_ before they go. It's her birthday,
to-day, by the way," he went on, addressing everybody collectively, "and I
insist upon the occasion being properly honoured."
He continued pouring out a stream of light-hearted nonsense, focussing
every one's attention on himself, and thus giving Ann time to recover her
poise. When, finally, she joined in the general conversation, she was quite
composed once more, although she still looked somewhat pale and tired.
The scene with Brett had exhausted her more than she knew. The man's sheer
vitality and force were overwhelming, and his efforts to impose his will on
hers, to force from her some response to the flaming ardour of his passion,
had left her feeling mentally and spiritually sore and bruised, just as,
physically, she had ached all over after the buffeting she had received
from the waves at Berrier Cove. She longed inexpressibly for the peace and
quiet of her own room, and she felt thankful when at length the moment for
departure actually arrived.
Lady Susan glanced keenly at her once or twice as they were rowed across
the bay to the now deserted quay, but she refrained from making any comment
on the girl's appearance of fatigue. It was only as they were walking up
the tarred planking of the jetty together, somewhat behind the rest of the
party, that she asked with a queer mixtures of tenderness and humour:
"May I guess, Ann?"
"There's--nothing--to guess," said Ann bluntly.
Lady Susan came to a standstill and stood looking down at her with eyes
that laughed.
"So you've turned him down?" she queried.
Ann nodded silently.
"Well"--incisively--"it will do him a whole heap of good. He's much too
inclined to think the entire world is his for the taking."
Involuntarily Ann laughed outright at the palpable truth of the statement,
and with that spontaneous laughter was borne away much of the hurt pride
and resentment which had been galling her. It was, after all, absurd to
take an irresponsible being like Brett Forrester too seriously.
"I don't altogether envy Brett's wife," pursued Lady Susan judicially.
"Still, she'd never find life monotonous, whatever else. He'd probably beat
her and drag her round by the hair when he was in a rage. But he'd know how
to play the lover, my dear--don't make any mistake about that!"
"I may be old-fashioned," said Ann demurely. "But I don't think I feel
particularly attracted by the prospect of being beaten and dragged around
by the hair."
Lady Susan's dark eyes twinkled.
"All the same, I don't fancy Brett will allow a little prejudice like that
to stand in his way. If I know my nephew--and I think I do--he won't meekly
accept his _congé_ and run away and play like a good little boy."
"Oh, I think he quite understands," replied Ann a trifle breathlessly.
Lady Susan shook her head.
"My dear," she said, "Brett is delightful, and I'm ridiculously fond of
him. But I'm bound to admit that he hasn't any principles whatever. And he
never understands anything he doesn't want to."