"Now for your apology."
"My apology?"
"I wrote, and you did not bestow upon me so much as a line. Were you
afraid that I should trade with your autograph?"
"Folly is not yet quite rampant in man. I answered by obeying."
She turned a little towards him.
"It is not a bad house to stay in. One has one's liberty." The next
moment she added--"Do you know my step-mother?"
"No."
"She is there--in black and green. Black hair as well. You need not
murmur inarticulate admiration, for we do not love each other."
"That does not make her the less handsome."
"To women it does. Where a woman dislikes she cannot admire. Probably
you know most of the other people?"
"No. I see Lord Arthur Crosse next Lady Dalrymple."
Anne let her eyes rest reflectively upon the two persons he named,
without answering the remark except by a slight nod. Presently,
however, she said--
"Do you think he will marry her? The question interests me more than it
should, for you know that we are in a measure bound together. My father
ruled that I was to be dependent upon her until I married--or she. I
believe our old lawyer got that last clause put in out of sheer
good-will to me, for my father had faith in her perpetual tears. He
loved me, too, but he tried to see too far. I am not sure that a will
is ever a just thing. The dead, should they control the living?" She
was unconscious how closely Wareham's thoughts flew with hers. He
said--
"They must, while men have hearts. Made as we are, it is impossible to
refuse what the dying ask."
"What they ask?" repeated Anne, lifting her eyebrows. "I was talking of
what they command. The most undecided of men becomes an irrevocable
force by the mere act of dying."
"There are other forces besides that of law," Wareham persisted. "A
wish may bind as tightly as a will."
He was reminded of an old trick of Anne's which he had almost forgotten,
when she threw him a glance between half-closed lids. But the lady on
his other side addressed a remark to him, and Anne took the opportunity
to talk to her neighbour. Wareham saw Lady Fanny looking at them with
what he supposed to be surprise at the audacity which had changed the
order of the dinner, or, rather, the diners; of other thoughts of hers
he was unsuspicious. By and by Anne addressed him again.
"Are you the typical Englishman, only happy when you are killing
something?"
He broke into sturdy disclaimer.
"You mean because I have come to shoot? I like the open air and the
walking; as for results, I am absolutely indifferent."
"But you go out with them to-morrow?" He said yes, and added quickly,
without looking at her--
"Why else am I here?"
"True. Why else?" Anne said, speaking deliberately, and nibbling an
almond. "To tell the truth, I thought it probable the inducement might
not be sufficient. That was why I wrote."
The answer "Your summons brought me," rushed to his lips, and had to be
driven back. He only ventured on, "And I have not thanked you," and
dashed in another direction. "Colonel Martyn looks almost happy. I
expect this life is very congenial to him."
"Nothing could be more so. He is out from morning to night, and can
tell you the history of every hit and every miss, chapter and verse.
Norway was wasted time in his life."
"He has more heart than his wife," said Wareham bluntly.
"You were speaking to her just now. Has that caused your criticism?"
"Not that more than another, but it did not change my impression."
"I suspect that to change would always cost you something," said Anne,
smiling.
He was on the watch against a personal note, and held himself woodenly
irresponsive. But the fretting consciousness of being tongue-tied
whenever he was with her, of being forced into the condition of a
surface against which a match was struck in vain, worried his nerves
into irritation. More than once he thought that Anne glanced at him
with surprise at his dullness, or might it be his coldness. This seemed
hardly possible to him, conscious as he was of a fire within which had
to be kept down by liberal sluicing with cold water. It was delight to
be near her, yet torture, and he told himself that he had been a fool to
come. Yet when the men were left in the room after dinner it had become
a desert.
The evening might have been blissful.
Opportunity was there, could he have grasped her. Once or twice, it is
true, Lord Milborough succeeded in monopolising Anne; but there was
scarcely a minute when Wareham was not aware that the privilege might
have been his, had he sought it.
Anne's extreme beauty, the brilliant beauty which belongs to night, the
attraction she undoubtedly was bent on exercising, made his brain dizzy.
As they parted in the hall, she said reproachfully--
"So you desert us for the whole of to-morrow!"
"Thank goodness!" said a voice behind.
"Discontented men hanging about the whole of the day would be
unendurable."
It was Mrs Martyn. Anne laughed good-humouredly.
"I don't know your discontented men."
She was told to wait until experience had been broadened by marriage,
and rated with prophecies all the way up the stairs. At Mrs Martyn's
door she lingered, and finally entered, dropping into a deep chair near
the fire. Blanche dismissed her maid, and stood by the mantelpiece,
unfastening her bracelets.
"The house has capabilities," she said, "and you may make it charming."
Anne stared.
"My dear, you don't suppose that I am blind and deaf? Of course, we all
know that you can marry Lord Milborough when you please. Why pretend?"
"What do you expect me to say?" said Anne coolly.
"Not the usual stock commonplaces."
"It is hard to be original when one has nothing to say; harder, perhaps,
when one has. I give it up. Commonplace or not, I assure you Lord
Milborough has not asked me to marry him, so that I have had no
opportunity of--"
"Accepting him?" said Mrs Martyn eagerly.
"Giving him an answer."
"You are an adept, my dear, in holding a man at arm's length, or drawing
him nearer as you please!"
Anne's eyes were charged with anger.
"Blanche!"
"Can you deny it? Every now and then you land yourself in a scrape, as
with that poor young fellow. Anne, tell me"--with a change of voice she
leaned forward curiously--"if he had lived, what would you have done?"
Anne glanced at her, and did not at first answer. She lay back in the
chair, her dark head resting against the cushion, the flicker of the
fire catching a diamond cluster which nestled in her hair. Presently
she said slowly--
"I don't know. I believe he might have swept me into marrying him."
"Is that the secret?"
"I feel like Samson--as foolish perhaps in breathing it--but the man who
marries me must do it quickly, give me no time to find out that I hate
him, or to change my mind. If I see him hesitate, he is lost."
"You want a stronger will than your own?" Mrs Martyn said in surprise.
"What a dangerous wish!"
"I want my eyes bandaged, like a shying horse," said Anne, smiling at
her own simile. "Then I might take the leap. Otherwise I see too much,
and imagination refuses to trot along meekly gazing at the one side of
the subject which is presented to me."
"It is a pity you did not live in old days. A border raid or a swoop of
pirates might have given you the wooing you desire."
Anne agreed.
"No time for hesitation."
Mrs Martyn remarked that Thorpe would be more to her own liking than an
old Scotch stronghold. Anne got up.
"Ah, don't weary me with talk of it!"
"I believe, after all, you are like Samson, and have not told me the
truth at all. What you really want is a struggle. You conquer too
easily."
Anne stood considering.
"That is only the first act of the drama," she said at last. "I hold to
what I have said. No more questions. Good-night."
As her maid was brushing her hair, she asked whether the Mr Wareham who
had arrived that evening was not the same gentleman who had come to
their rescue in that dreadful accident when they were so nearly killed?
Anne laughed.
"Your memory is so creative, Watkins, that you add fresh horrors
whenever you allude to that day. Yes, it was Mr Wareham with whom I
walked to Oakwood."
"How you could, ma'am! My legs wouldn't have carried me."
"They must, if the young farmer hadn't been there. Did he tell you Mr
Wareham's name?"
"Yes, ma'am. And that he was staying at Sir Michael Forbes'."
"Anything more?" asked Anne indifferently.
"He was a great friend of the family, Mr Smith said, and down there a
great deal. There was some talk of he and Miss Forbes making a match of
it. But people are so ready to talk!"
"They are!" Anne agreed with a smile. She sent Watkins away, and sat
before the fire staring at a cheerfully blazing log, and bent on
investigations. Mrs Martyn's rather broad statements were not required
to enlighten her as to the fact that a crisis in her life approached,
and for once she did not know how to deal with it. A year ago--six
months ago--she would have known very well; then there came a hitherto
unknown stirring in her heart, not love, but liking, for Hugh. It
amused her so much to find herself at last the sport of fancy, that she
caught at the diversion, meaning to break away from the mischievous elf
when she pleased. But that strange weakness of her nature which she had
confessed to Mrs Martyn, that yielding to a dominating impetuosity,
carried her further than she intended. She was on the verge before she
knew, she did not love him well enough to take the plunge, yet liked him
so much that her retreat had to be cowardly.
Moreover, she had shocked her world, and felt her kingdom totter. To
meet Wareham at this moment was to be irresistibly impelled to charm.
Conquer him, and she was once more queen--at least in her own
estimation. She found balm to her wounded vanity in re-asserting power.
Then she was puzzled. Convinced that to a certain extent she had
succeeded, she was met by a wall of reserve, tried to get round it, to
break it down; failed, and stood piqued and revolving. Even when she
had to her own satisfaction penetrated the cause, it displeased her, for
though she had never felt a deep love, she insisted that to be true it
must over-ride friendship. Difficulty and displeasure together
attracted her to Wareham the more, and when Hugh died, her thoughts
crowned him for his fidelity; the more readily, since it could no longer
hamper her. The verdict upon her that she was heartless she had
accepted with a jest, and quoted the world, but it had secretly stung
her, because she was suspicious of its truth. But her feelings towards
Wareham relieved her, for something had awakened in her different from
what she had hitherto experienced. She told herself that to marry him
she might be ready to give up a good deal--Thorpe, for instance--and she
closed her eyes, recalling his face, his voice, the strength of his
mouth, which had always fascinated her. Meeting him at Firleigh, she
had expected more than he gave: as it did not come, she supposed that he
was waiting for a decent interval to elapse, or perhaps trusted to that
second interview which Sir Hugh's death frustrated.
But now, now she had cast her die. Only by dint of ingenious management
of Lord Milborough had she gained the invitation. Nothing at Bergen had
raised his suspicions, and when he consulted her as to the people who
should be asked, Wareham was indifferently suggested. A man of note.
"Not much in my line," said Lord Milborough, whereupon her "But perhaps
in mine," alarmed him, lest she should think her tastes would not have
full play. He was asked and was there. The next two days must decide.
For that time she believed she could hold back her host. In that time
she would take care that Wareham had his opportunity. She did not
acknowledge herself to be won, but owned that he might win her. If he
did not--then farewell, hearts and lovers. There remained Thorpe.