CHAPTER XIX
IN THE COUNTRY
They sat on the edge of the wood, and a west wind made music for them overhead among the fir trees. From their feet a clover field sloped steeply to a honeysuckle-wreathed hedge. Beyond that, meadow-land, riven by the curving stream which stretched like a thread of silver to the blue, hazy distance. Arnold laughed softly with the pleasure of it, but the wonder kept Ruth tongue-tied.
"I feel," she murmured, "as though I were in a theatre for the first time. Everything is strange."
"It is the theatre of nature," Arnold replied. "If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the orchestra. There is a lark singing above my head, and a thrush somewhere back in the wood there."
"And see, in the distance there are houses," Ruth continued softly. "Just fancy, Arnold, people, if they had no work to do, could live here, could live always out of sight of the hideous, smoky city, out of hearing of its thousand discords."
He smiled.
"There are a great many who feel like that," he said, his eyes fixed upon the horizon, "and then, as the days go by, they find that there is something missing. The city of a thousand discords generally has one clear cry, Ruth."
"For you, perhaps," she answered, "because you are young and because you are ambitious. But for me who lie on my back all day long, think of the glory of this!"
Arnold slowly sat up.
"Upon my word!" he exclaimed. "Why not. Why shouldn't you stay in the country for the summer? I hate London, too. There are cheap tickets, and bicycles, and all sorts of things. I wonder whether we couldn't manage it."
She said nothing. His thoughts were busy with the practical side of it. There was an opportunity here, too, to prepare her for what he felt sure was inevitable.
"You know, Ruth," he said, "I don't wish to say anything against Isaac, and I don't want to make you uneasy, but you know as well as I do that he has a strange maggot in his brain. When I first heard him talk, I thought of him as a sort of fanatic. It seems to me that he has changed. I am not sure that such changes as have taken place in him lately have not been for the worse."
"Tell me what you mean?" she begged.
"I mean," he continued, "that Isaac, who perhaps in himself may be incapable of harm, might be an easy prey to those who worked upon his wild ideas. Hasn't it struck you that for the last few days—"
She clutched at his hand and stopped him.
"Don't!" she implored. "These last few days have been horrible. Isaac has not left his room except to creep out sometimes into mine. He keeps his door locked. What he does I don't know, but if he hears a step on the stairs he slinks away, and his face is like the face of a hunted wolf. Arnold, do you think that he has been getting into trouble?"
"I am afraid," Arnold said, regretfully, "that it is not impossible. Tell me, Ruth, you are very fond of him?"
"He was my mother's brother—the only relative I have in the world," she answered. "What could I do without him?"
"He doesn't seem to want you particularly, just now, at any rate," Arnold said. "I don't see why we shouldn't take rooms out at one of these little villages. I could go back and forth quite easily. You'd like it, wouldn't you, Ruth? Fancy lying in a low, comfortable chair, and looking up at the blue sky, and listening to the birds and the humming of bees. The hours would slip by."
"I should love it," she murmured.
"Then why not?" he cried. "I'll stop the car at the next village we come to, and make inquiries."
She laid her hand softly upon his.
"Arnold, dear," she begged, "it sounds very delightful, and yet, can't you see it is impossible? I am not quite like other women, perhaps, but, after all, I am a woman. It is for your sake—for your sake, mind—that I think of this."
He turned and looked at her—looked at her, perhaps, with new eyes. She was stretched almost at full length upon the grass, her head, which had been supported by her clasped hands, now turned towards him. As she lay there, with her stick out of sight, her lips a little parted, her eyes soft with the sunlight, a faint touch of color in her cheeks, he suddenly realized the significance of her words. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly. Her plain black dress, simply made though it was, showed no defect of figure. Her throat was soft and white. The curve of her body was even graceful. The revelation of these things came as a shock to Arnold, yet it was curious that he found a certain pleasure in it.
"I had forgotten, Ruth," he said slowly, "but does it matter? You have no one in the world but Isaac, and I have no one in the world at all. Don't you think we can afford to do what seems sensible?"
Her eyes never left his face. She made no sign either of assent or dissent.
"Arnold," she declared, "it is true that I am an outcast. I have scarcely a relative in the world. But what you say about yourself is hard to believe. I have never asked you questions because it is not my business, but there are many little things by which one tells. I think that somewhere you have a family belonging to you with a name, even if, for any reason, you do not choose just now to claim them."
He made no direct reply. He watched for some moments a white-sailed boat come tacking down the narrow strip of river.
"I am my own master, Ruth," he said; "I have no one else to please or to consider. I understand what you have just told me, but if I gave you my word that I would try and be to you what Isaac might have been if he had not been led away by these strange ideas, wouldn't you trust me, Ruth?"
"It isn't that!" she exclaimed. "Trust you? Why, you know that I would! It isn't that I mind for myself either what people would say—or anything, but I am thinking of your new friends, of your future. If they knew that you were living down in the country with a girl, even though she were an invalid, who was no relation at all, don't you think that it might make a difference?"
"Of course not," he replied, "and, in any case, what should I care? It would be the making of you, Ruth. You would be able to pick up your strength, so that when our money-box is full you would be able to have that operation and never dare to call yourself an invalid again."
She half closed her eyes. The spell of summer was in the air, the spell of life was stirring slowly in her frozen blood.
"Ah! Arnold," she murmured, "I do not think that you must talk like that. It makes me feel so much like yielding. Somehow, the dreams out here seem even more wonderful than the visions which come floating up the river. There's more life here. Don't you feel it? Something seems to creep into your heart, into your pulses, and tell you what life is."
He made no answer. The world of the last few throbbing weeks seemed far enough away with him, too. He picked a handful of clover and thrust it into the bosom of her gown. Then he rose reluctantly to his feet and held out his hands.
"I think," he said, "that the great gates of freedom must be somewhere out here, but just now one is forced to remember that we are slaves."
He drew her to her feet, placed the stick in her hand, and supported her other arm. They walked for a step or two down the narrow path which led through the clover field to the lane below. Then, with a little laugh, he caught her up in his arms.
"It will be quicker if I carry you, Ruth," he proposed. "The weeds twine their way all the time around your stick."
She linked her arms around his neck; her cheek touched his for a moment, and he was surprised to find it as hot as fire. He stepped out bravely enough, but with every step it seemed to him that she was growing heavier. Her hands were still tightly linked around his neck, but her limbs were inert. She seemed to be falling away. He held her tighter, his breath began to grow shorter. The perfume of the clover, fragrant and delicate, grew stronger with every step they took. Somehow he felt that that walk along the narrow path was carving its way into his life. The fingers at the back of his neck were cold, yet she, too, was breathing as though she had been running. Her eyes were half closed. He looked once into her face, bent over her until his lips nearly touched hers. He set his teeth hard. Some instinct warned him of the dangers of the moment. Her stick slipped and a lump arose in his throat. The moment had passed. He kissed her softly upon the forehead.
"Dear Ruth!" he whispered.
She turned very pale and very soon afterward she insisted upon being set down. They walked slowly to where the motor car was waiting at the corner of the lane. Ruth began to talk nervously.
"It was charming of Mrs. Weatherley," she declared, "to lend you this car. Tell me how it happened, Arnie?"
"I simply told her," he replied, "that I was going to take a friend, who needed a little fresh air, out into the country, and she insisted upon sending this car instead of letting me hire a taxicab. It was over the telephone and I couldn't refuse. Besides, Mr. Weatherley was in the office, and he insisted upon it, too. They only use this one in London, and I know that they are away somewhere for the week-end."
"It has been so delightful," Ruth murmured. "Now I am going to lie back among these beautiful cushions, and just watch and think."
The car glided on along the country lane, passing through leafy hamlets, across a great breezy moorland, from the top of which they could see the Thames winding its way into Oxfordshire, a sinuous belt of silver. Then they sped down into the lower country, and Arnold looked at the milestones in some surprise.
"We don't seem to be getting any nearer to London," he remarked.
Ruth only shook her head.
"It will come soon enough," she said, with a little shiver. "It will pass, this, like everything else."
They had dropped to the level now, and suddenly, without warning, the car swung through a low white gate up along an avenue of shrubs. Arnold leaned forward.
"Where are you taking us?" he asked the driver. "There is some mistake."
But there was no mistake. A turn of the wheel and the car was slowing down before the front of a long, ivy-covered house, with a lawn as smooth as velvet, and beyond, the soft murmur of the river. Ruth clutched at his arm.
"Arnold!" she exclaimed. "What does this mean? Who lives here?"
"I have no idea," he answered, "unless—"
The windows in front of the house were all of them open and all of them level with the drive. Through the nearest of them at that moment stepped Fenella. She stood, for a moment, framed in the long French window, hung with clematis,—a wonderful picture even for Arnold, a revelation to Ruth,—in her cool muslin frock, open at the throat, and held together by a brooch with a great green stone. She wore no hat, and her wonderful hair seemed to have caught the sunlight in its meshes. Her eyebrows were a little raised; her expression was a little supercilious, faintly inquisitive. Already she had looked past Arnold. Her eyes were fixed upon the girl by his side.
"I began to think that you were lost," she said gayly. "Won't you present me to your friend, Arnold?"
CHAPTER XX
WOMAN'S WILES
Arnold sprang to his feet. It was significant that, after his first surprise, he spoke to Fenella with his head half turned towards his companion, and an encouraging smile upon his lips.
"I had no idea that we were coming here," he said. "We should not have thought of intruding. It was your chauffeur who would not even allow us to ask a question."
"He obeyed my orders," Fenella replied. "I meant it for a little surprise for you. I thought that it would be pleasant after your drive to have you call here and rest for a short time. You must present me to your friend."
Arnold murmured a word of introduction. Ruth moved a little in her seat. She lifted herself with her left hand, leaning upon her stick. Fenella's expression changed as though by magic. Her cool, good-humored, but almost impertinent scrutiny suddenly vanished. She moved to the side of the motor car and held out both her hands.
"I am so glad to see you here," she declared. "I hope that you will like some tea after your long ride. Perhaps you would prefer Mr. Chetwode to help you out?"
"You are very kind," Ruth murmured. "I am sorry to be such a trouble to everybody."
Arnold lifted her bodily out of the car and placed her on the edge of the lawn. Fenella, a long parasol in her hand, was looking pleasantly down at her guest.
"You will find it quite picturesque here, I think," she said. "It is not really the river itself which comes to the end of the lawn, but a little stream. It is so pretty, though, and so quiet. I thought you would like to have tea down there. But, my poor child," she exclaimed, "your hair is full of dust! You must come to my room. It is on the ground floor here. Mr. Chetwode and I together can help you so far."
They turned back toward the house and passed into the cool white hall, the air of which was fragrant with the perfume of geraniums and clematis. On the threshold of Fenella's room they were alone for a moment. Fenella was summoning her maid. Ruth clung nervously to Arnold. The room into which they looked was like a fairy chamber, full of laces and perfume and fine linen.
"Arnold," she whispered, "you are sure that you did not know about coming here?"
"I swear that I had no idea," he answered. "I would not have thought of bringing you without telling you first."
Then Fenella returned and he was banished into the garden. At the end of the lawn he found Mr. Weatherley, half asleep in a wicker chair. The latter was apparently maintaining his good spirits.
"Glad to see you, Chetwode," he said. "Sort of plot of my wife's, I think. Your young lady friend in the house?"
"Mrs. Weatherley was kind enough to take her to her room," Arnold replied. "We have had a most delightful ride, and I suppose it was dusty, although we never noticed it."
Mr. Weatherley relit his cigar, which had gone out while he dozed.
"Thought we'd like a little country air ourselves for the week-end," he remarked. "Will you smoke?"
Arnold shook his head.
"Not just now, thank you, sir. Is that the river through the trees there?"
Mr. Weatherley nodded.
"It's about a hundred yards down the stream," he replied. "Bourne End is the nearest station. The cottage belongs to my brother-in-law—Sabatini. I believe he's coming down later on. Any news at the office yesterday morning?"
"There was nothing whatever requiring your attention, sir," Arnold said. "There are a few letters which we have kept over for to-morrow, but nothing of importance."
Mr. Weatherley pursed his lips and nodded. He asked a further question or two concerning the business and then turned his head at the sound of approaching footsteps. Ruth, looking very pale and fragile, was leaning on the arm of a man-servant. Fenella walked on the other side, her lace parasol drooping over her shoulder, her head turned towards Ruth's, whose shyness she was doing her best to melt. Mr. Weatherley rose hastily from his chair.
"God bless my soul!" he declared. "I didn't know—you didn't tell me—"
"Miss Lalonde has been a great sufferer," Arnold said. "She has been obliged to spend a good deal of her time lying down. For that reason, to-day has been such a pleasure to her."
He hurried forward and took the butler's place. Together they installed her in the most comfortable chair. Mr. Weatherley came over and shook hands with her.
"Pretty place, this, Miss Lalonde, isn't it?" he remarked. "It's a real nice change for business men like Mr. Chetwode and myself to get down here for an hour or two's quiet."
"It is wonderfully beautiful," she answered. "It is so long since I was out of London that perhaps I appreciate it more, even, than either of you."
"What part of London do you live in?" Fenella asked her.
"My uncle and I have rooms in the same house as Mr. Chetwode," she replied. "It is in Adam Street, off the Strand."
"Not much air there this hot weather, I don't suppose," Mr. Weatherley remarked.
"We are on the top floor," she replied, "and it is the end house, nearest to the river. Still, one feels the change here."
Tea was brought out by the butler, assisted by a trim parlor-maid. Fenella presided. The note of domesticity which her action involved seemed to Arnold, for some reason or other, quaintly incongruous. Arnold waited upon them, and Fenella talked all the time to the pale, silent girl at her side. Gradually Ruth overcame her shyness; it was impossible not to feel grateful to this beautiful, gracious woman who tried so hard to make her feel at her ease. The time slipped by pleasantly enough. Then Fenella rose to her feet.
"You must carry Miss Lalonde and her chair down to the very edge of the lawn, where she can see the river," she told Arnold. "Afterwards, I am going to take you to see my little rose garden. I say mine, but it is really my brother's, only it was my idea when he first took the place. Mr. Weatherley is going down to the boat-builder's to see some motor-launches—horrible things they are, but necessary if we stay here for the summer. Would you like some books or magazines, Miss Lalonde, or do you think you would care to come with us if we helped you very carefully?"
Ruth shook her head.
"I should like to sit quite close to the river," she said shyly, "just where you said, and close my eyes. You don't know how beautiful it is to get the roar of London out of one's ears, and be able to hear nothing except these soft, summer sounds. It is like a wonderful rest."
They arranged her comfortably. Mr. Weatherley returned to the house. Fenella led the way through a little iron gate to a queer miniature garden, a lawn brilliant with flower-beds, ending in a pergola of roses. They passed underneath it and all around them the soft, drooping blossoms filled the whole air with fragrance. At the end was the river and a wooden seat. She motioned to him to sit by her side.
"You are not angry with me?" she asked, a little timidly.
"Angry? Why should I be?" he answered. "The afternoon has been delightful. I can't tell you how grateful I feel."
"All the same," she said, "I think you know that I laid a plot to bring you here because I was curious about this companion of yours, for whose sake you refused my invitation. However, you see I am penitent. Poor girl, how can one help feeling sorry for her! You forgive me?"
"I forgive you," he answered.
She closed her parasol and leaned back in her corner of the seat. She seemed to be studying his expression.
"There is something different about you this afternoon," she said. "I miss a look from your face, something in your tone when you are talking to me."
He shook his head.
"I am not conscious of any difference."
She laughed softly, but she seemed, even then, a little annoyed.
"You are not appreciating me," she declared. "Do you know that here, in the wilderness, I have put on a Paquin muslin gown, white shoes from Paris, white silk stockings—of which you can see at least two inches," she added, glancing downwards. "I have risked my complexion by wearing no hat, so that you can see my hair really at its best. I looked in the glass before you came and even my vanity was satisfied. Now I bring you away with me and find you a seat in a bower of roses, and you look up into that elm tree as though you were more anxious to find out where the thrush was singing than to look at me."
He laughed. Through the raillery of her words he could detect a certain half-girlish earnestness which seemed to him delightful.
"Try and remember," he said, "how wonderful a day like this must seem to any one like myself, who has spent day after day for many months in Tooley Street. I have been sitting up on the hills, listening to the wind in the trees. You can't imagine the difference when you've been used to hearing nothing but the rumble of drays on their way to Bermondsey."
She looked up at him.
"You know," she declared, "you are rather a mysterious person. I cannot make up my mind that you are forced to live the life you do."
"You do not suppose," he replied, "that any sane person would choose it? It is well enough now, thanks to you," he added, dropping his voice a little. "A week ago, I was earning twenty-eight shillings a week, checking invoices and copying letters—an errand boy's work; pure, unadulterated drudgery, working in a wretched atmosphere, without much hope of advancement or anything else."
"But even then you leave part of my question unanswered," she insisted. "You were not born to this sort of thing?"
"I was not," he admitted; "but what does it matter?"
"You don't care to tell me your history?" she asked lazily. "Sometimes I am curious about it."
"If I refuse," he answered, "it may give you a false impression. I will tell you a little, if I may. A few sentences will be enough."
"I should really like to hear," she told him.
"Very well, then," he replied. "My father was a clergyman, his family was good. He and I lived almost alone. He had an income and his stipend, but he was ambitious for me, and, by some means or other, while I was away he was led to invest all his money with one of these wretched bucket-shop companies. A telegram fetched me home unexpectedly just as I was entering for my degree. I found my father seriously ill and almost broken-hearted. I stayed with him, and in a fortnight he died. There was just enough—barely enough—to pay what he owed, and nothing left of his small fortune. His brother, my uncle, came down to the funeral, and I regret to say that even then I quarreled with him. He made use of language concerning my father and his folly which I could not tolerate. My father was very simple and very credulous and very honorable. He was just the sort of man who becomes the prey of these wretched circular-mongering sharks. What he did, he did for my sake. My uncle spoke of him with contempt, spoke as though he were charged with the care of me through my father's foolishness. I am afraid I made no allowance for my uncle's peculiar temperament. The moment the funeral was over, I turned him out of the house. I have no other relatives. I came to London sooner than remain down in the country and be found a position out of charity, which is, I suppose, what would have happened. I took a room and looked for work. Naturally, I was glad to get anything. I used to make about forty calls a day, till I called at your husband's office in Tooley Street and got a situation."
She nodded.
"I thought it was something like that," she remarked. "Supposing I had not happened to discover you, I wonder how long you would have gone on?"
"Not much longer," he admitted. "To tell you the truth, I should have enlisted but for that poor little girl whom I brought down with me this afternoon."
His tone had softened. There was the slightest trace of a frown upon her face as she looked along the riverside.
"But tell me," she asked, "what is your connection with her?"
"One of sympathy and friendliness only," he answered. "I never saw her till I took the cheapest room I could find at the top of a gaunt house near the Strand. The rest of the top floor is occupied by this girl and her uncle. He is a socialist agitator, engaged on one of the trades' union papers,—a nervous, unbalanced creature, on fire with strange ideas,—the worst companion in the world for any one. Sometimes he is away for days together. Sometimes, when he is at home, he talks like a prophet, half mad, half inspired, as though he were tugging at the pillars which support the world. The girl and he are alone as I am alone, and there is something which brings people very close together when they are in that state. I found her fallen upon the landing one day and unable to reach her rooms, and I carried her in and talked. Since then she looks for me every evening, and we spend some part of the time together."
"Is she educated?"
"Excellently," he answered. "She was brought up in a convent after her parents' death. She has read a marvellous collection of books, and she is very quick-witted and appreciative."
"But you," she said, "are no longer a waif. These things are passing for you. You cannot carry with you to the new world the things which belong to the old."
"No prosperity should ever come to me," he declared, firmly, "in which that child would not share to some extent. With the first two hundred pounds I possess, if ever I do possess such a sum," he added, with a little laugh, "I am going to send her to Vienna, to the great hospital there."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Two hundred pounds is not a large sum," she remarked. "Would you like me to lend it to you?"
He shook his head.
"She would not hear of it," he said. "In her way, she is very proud."
"It may come of its own accord," she whispered, softly. "You may even have an opportunity of earning it."
"I am doing well enough just now," he remarked, "thanks to Mr. Weatherley, but sums of money like that do not fall from the clouds."
They were both silent. She seemed to be listening to the murmur of the stream. His head was lifted to the elm tree, from somewhere among whose leafy recesses a bird was singing.
"One never knows," she said softly. "You yourself have seen and heard of strange things happening within the last few days."
He came back to earth with a little start.
"It is true," he confessed.
"There is life still," she continued, "throbbing sometimes in the dull places, adventures which need only the strong arm and the man's courage. One might come to you, and adventures do not go unrewarded."
"You talk like your brother," he remarked.
"Why not?" she replied. "Andrea and I have much in common. Do you know that sometimes you provoke me a little?"
"I?"
She nodded.
"You have so much the air of a conqueror," she said. "You look as though you had courage and determination. One could see that by your mouth. And yet you are so much like the men of your nation, so stolid, so certain to move along the narrow lines which convention has drawn for you. Oh! if I could," she went on, leaning towards him and looking intently into his face, "I would borrow the magic from somewhere and mix a little in your wine, so that you should drink and feel the desire for new things; so that the world of Tooley Street should seem to you as though it belonged to a place inhabited only by inferior beings; so that you should feel new blood in your veins, hot blood crying for adventures, a new heart beating to a new music. I would like, if I could, Arnold, to bring those things into your life."
He turned and looked at her. Her face was within a few inches of his. She was in earnest. The gleam in her eyes was half-provocative, half a challenge. Arnold rose uneasily to his feet.
"I must go back," he said, a little thickly. "I forgot that Ruth is so shy. She will be frightened alone."
He walked away down the pergola without even waiting for her. It was very rude, but she only leaned back in her chair and laughed. In a way, it was a triumph!
CHAPTER XXI
ARNOLD SPEAKS OUT
Ruth was still alone, and her welcome was almost pathetic. She stretched out her arms—long, thin arms they seemed in the tight black sleeves of her worn gown. She had discarded her carefully mended gloves and her hands were bare.
"Arnold," she murmured, "how long you have been away!"
He threw himself on the grass by her side.
"Silly little woman!" he answered. "Don't tell me that you are not enjoying it?"
"It is all wonderful," she whispered, "but can't you see that I am out of place? When could we go, Arnie?"
"Are you so anxious to get away?" he asked, lazily.
"In a way, I should be content to stay here for ever," she answered. "If you and I only could be here—why, Arnold, it is like Heaven! Just close your eyes as I have been doing—like that. Now listen. There isn't any undernote, none of that ceaseless, awful monotony of sound that seems like the falling of weary men's feet upon the eternal pavement. Listen—there is a bird singing somewhere in that tree, and the water goes lapping and lapping and lapping, as though it had something pleasant to say but were too lazy to say it. And every now and then, if you listen very intently, you can hear laughing voices through the trees there from the river, laughter from people who are happy, who are sailing on somewhere to find their city of pleasure. And the perfumes, Arnold! I don't know what the rose garden is like, but even from here I can smell it. It is wonderful."
"Yet you ask me when we are going," he reminded her.
She shivered for a moment.
"It is not my world," she declared. "I am squeezed for a moment into a little corner of it, but it is not mine and I have nothing to do with it. She is so beautiful, that woman, and so gracious. She talks to me out of pity, but when I first came she looked at me and there was a challenge in her eyes. What did it mean, Arnold? Is she fond of you? Is she going to be fond of you?"
He laughed, a little impatiently.
"My dear Ruth," he said, "she is my employer's wife. She has been kind to me because I think that she is naturally kind, and because lately she has not found among her friends many people of her own age. Beyond that, there is nothing; there is never likely to be anything. She mixes in a world where she can have all the admiration she desires, and all the friends."
"Yet she looks at you," Ruth persisted, in a troubled tone, "as though she had some claim; as though I, even poor I, were an interloper for the tiny share I might have of your thoughts or sympathy. I do not understand it."
He touched her hand lightly with his.
"You are too sensitive, dear," he said, "and a little too imaginative. You must remember that she is half a foreigner. Her moods change every moment, and her expression with them. She was curious to see you. I have tried to explain to her what friends we are. I am sure that her interest is a friendly one."
A motor horn immediately behind startled them both. They turned their heads. A very handsome car, driven by a man in white livery, had swept up the little drive and had come to a standstill in front of the hall door. From the side nearest to them Count Sabatini descended, and stood for a moment looking around him. The car moved on towards the stables. Sabatini came slowly across the lawn.
"Who is it?" she whispered. "How handsome he is!"
"He is Mrs. Weatherley's brother—Count Sabatini," Arnold replied.
He came very slowly and, recognizing Arnold, waved his gray Homburg hat with a graceful salute. He was wearing cool summer clothes of light gray, with a black tie, boots with white linen gaiters, and a flower in his coat. Even after his ride from London he looked immaculate and spotless. He greeted Arnold kindly and without any appearance of surprise.
"I heard that you were to be here," he said. "My sister told me of her little plot. I hope that you approve of my bungalow?"
"I think that it is wonderful," Arnold answered. "I have never seen anything of the river before—this part of it, at any rate."
Sabatini turned slightly towards Ruth, as though expecting an introduction. His lips were half parted; he had the air of one about to make a remark. Then suddenly a curious change seemed to come over his manner. His natural ease seemed to have entirely departed. He stood stiff and rigid, and there was something forbidding in his face as he looked down at the girl who had glanced timidly towards him. A word—it was inaudible but it sounded like part of a woman's name—escaped him. He had the appearance, during those few seconds, of a man who looks through the present into a past world. It was all over before even they could appreciate the situation. With a little smile he had leaned down towards Ruth.
"You will do me the honor," he murmured, "of presenting me to your companion?"
Arnold spoke a word or two of introduction. Sabatini pulled up a chair and sat down at once by the girl's side. He had seen the stick and seemed to have taken in the whole situation in a moment.
"Please be very good-natured," he begged, turning to Arnold, "and go and find my sister. She will like to know that I am here. I am going to talk to Miss Lalonde for a time, if she will let me. You don't mind my being personal?" he went on, his voice soft with sympathy. "I had a very dear cousin once who was unable to walk for many years, and since then it has always interested me to find any one suffering in the same way."
There was a simple directness about his speech which seemed to open the subject so naturally that Ruth found herself talking without effort of her accident, and the trouble it had brought. They drifted so easily into conversation that Arnold left them almost at once. He had only a little distance to go before he found Fenella returning. She was carrying a great handful of roses which she had just gathered, and to his relief there was no expression of displeasure in her face. Perhaps, though, he reflected with a sinking heart, she had understood!
"Your brother has just arrived," he announced. "I think that he has motored down from London. He wished me to let you know that he was here."
"Where is he?" she asked.
"He is on the lawn, talking to Miss Lalonde," Arnold replied.
"I will go to them presently," she said. "In the meantime, you are to make yourself useful, if you please," she added, holding out the roses. "Take these into the house, will you, and give them to one of the women."
He took them from her.
"With pleasure! And then, if you will excuse us,—"
"I excuse no word which is spoken concerning your departure," she declared. "To-night I give a little fête. We change our dinner into what you call supper, and we will have the dining table moved out under the trees there. You and your little friend must stop, and afterwards my brother will take you back to London in his car, or I will send you up in my own."
"You are too kind," Arnold answered. "I am afraid—"
"You are to be afraid of nothing," she interrupted, mockingly. "Is that not just what I have been preaching to you? You have too many fears for your height, my friend."
"We will put it another way, then. I was thinking of Miss Lalonde. She is not strong, and I think it is time we were leaving. If you could send us so far as the railway station—"
"There are no trains that leave here," she asserted; "at least, I never heard of them. I shall go and talk to her myself. We shall see. No, on second thoughts, she is too interested. You and I will walk to the house together. That is one thing," she continued, "which I envy my brother, which makes me admire him so much. I think he is the most charmingly sympathetic person I ever met. Illness of any sort, or sickness, seems to make a woman of him. I never knew a child or a woman whose interest or sympathy he could not win quickly."
"It is a wonderful thing to say of any man, that," Arnold remarked.
"Wonderful?" she repeated. "Why, yes! So far as regards children, at any rate. You know they say—one of the writers in my mother's country said—that men are attracted by beauty, children by goodness; and women by evil. It is of some such saying that you are thinking. Now I shall leave these flowers in the hall and ring the bell. Tell me, would you like me to show you my books?"
She laid her fingers upon the white door of her little drawing-room and looked at him.
"If you do not mind," he replied, "I should like to hear what Ruth says about going."
This time she frowned. She stood looking at him for a moment. Arnold's face was very square and determined, but there were still things there which she appreciated.
"You are very formal, to-day," she declared. "You give too many of your thoughts to your little friend. I do not think that you are treating me kindly. I should like to sit with you in my room and to talk to you of my books. Look, is it not pretty?"
She threw open the door. It was a tiny little apartment, in which all the appointments and the walls were white, except for here and there a little French gilded furniture of the best period. A great bowl of scarlet geraniums stood in one corner. Though the windows were open, the blinds were closely drawn, so that it was almost like twilight.
"You won't come for five minutes?" she begged.
"Yes!" he answered, almost savagely. "Come in and shut the door. I want to talk to you—not about your books. Yes, let us sit down—where you will. That couch is big enough for both of us."
The sudden change in his manner was puzzling. The two had changed places. The struggle was at an end, but it was scarcely as a victim that Arnold leaned towards her.
"Give me your hands," he said.
"Arnold!" she whispered.
He took them both and drew her towards him.
"What is it you want?" he asked. "Not me—I know that. You are beautiful, you know that I admire you, you know that a day like this is like a day out of some wonderful fairy story for me. I am young and foolish, I suppose, just as easily led away as most young men are. Do you want to make me believe impossible things? You look at me from the corners of your eyes and you laugh. Do you want to make use of me in any way? You're not a flirt. You are a wife, and a good wife. Do you know that men less impressionable than I have been made slaves for life by women less beautiful than you, without any effort on their part, even? No, I won't be laughed at! This is reality! What is it you want?" He leaned towards her. "Do you want me to kiss you? Do you want me to hold you in my arms? I could do it. I should like to do it. I will, if you tell me to. Only afterwards—"
"Afterwards, what?"
"I shall do what I should have done if your husband hadn't taken me into his office—I should enlist," he said. "I mayn't be particularly ambitious, but I've no idea of hanging about, a penniless adventurer, dancing at a woman's heels. Be honest with me. At heart I do believe in you, Fenella. What is it you want?"
She leaned back on the couch and laughed. It was no longer the subtle, provoking laugh of the woman of the world. She laughed frankly and easily, with all the lack of restraint to which her twenty-four years entitled her.
"My dear boy," she declared, "you have conquered. I give in. You have seen through me. I am a fraud. I have been trying the old tricks upon you because I am very much a woman, because I want you to be my slave and to do the things I want you to do and live in the world I want you to live in, and I was jealous of this companion for whose sake you would not accept my invitation. Now I am sane again. I see that you are not to be treated like other and more foolish young men. My brother wants you. He wants you for a companion, he wants you to help him in many ways. He has been used to rely upon me in such cases. I have my orders to place you there." She pointed to her feet. "Alas, that I have failed!" she added, laughing once more. "But, Arnold, we shall be friends?"
"Willingly," he answered, with an immense sense of relief. "Only remember this. I may have wisdom enough to see the lure, but I may not always have strength enough not to take it. I have spoken to you in a moment of sanity, but—well, you are the most compellingly beautiful person I ever saw, and compellingly beautiful women have never made a habit of being kind to me, so please—"
"Don't do it any more," she interrupted. "Is that it?"
"As you like."
"Now I am going to put a piece of scarlet geranium in your buttonhole, and I am going to take you out into the garden and hand you over to my brother, and tell him that my task is done, that you are my slave, and that he has only to speak and you will go out into the world with a revolver in one hand and a sword in the other, and wear any uniform or fight in any cause he chooses. Come!"
"You know," Arnold said, as they left the room, "I don't know any man I admire so much as your brother, but I am almost as frightened of him as I am of you."
"One who talks of fear so glibly," she answered, "seldom knows anything about it."
"There are as many different sorts of fear as there are different sorts of courage," he remarked.
"How we are improving!" she murmured. "We shall begin moralizing soon. Presently I really think we shall compare notes about the books we have read and the theatres we have been to, and before we are gray-headed I think one of us will allude to the weather. Now isn't my brother a wonderful man? Look at that flush upon Miss Lalonde's cheeks. Aren't you jealous?"
"Miserably!"
Sabatini rose to his feet and greeted his sister after his own fashion, holding both her hands and kissing her on both cheeks.
"If only," he sighed, "our family had possessed morals equal to their looks, what a race we should have been! But, my dear sister,—a question of taste only,—you should leave Doucet and Paquin at home when you come to my bungalow."
"You men never altogether understand," she replied. "Nothing requires a little artificial aid so much as nature. It is the piquancy of the contrast, you see. That is why the decorations of Watteau are the most wonderful in the world. He knew how to combine the purely, exquisitely artificial with the entirely simple. Now to break the news to Miss Lalonde!"
Ruth turned a smiling face towards her.
"It is to say that our fête day is at an end," she said, looking for her stick.
"Fête days do not end at six o'clock in the afternoon," Fenella replied. "I want you to be very kind and give us all a great deal of pleasure. We want to make a little party—you and Mr. Chetwode, my brother, myself and Mr. Weatherley—and dine under that cedar tree, just as we are. We are going to call it supper. Then, afterwards, you will have a ride back to London in the cool air. Either my brother will take you, or we will send a car from here."
"It is a charming idea," Sabatini said. "Miss Lalonde, you will not be unkind?"
She hesitated only for a moment. They saw her glance at her frock, the little feminine struggle, and the woman's conquest.
"If you really mean it," she said, "why, of course, I should love it. It is no good my pretending that if I had known I should have been better prepared," she continued, "because it really wouldn't have made any difference. If you don't mind—"
"Then it is settled!" Sabatini exclaimed. "My young friend Arnold is now going to take me out upon the river. I trust myself without a tremor to those shoulders."
Arnold rose to his feet with alacrity.
"You get into the boat-house down that path," Sabatini continued. "There is a comfortable punt in which I think I could rest delightfully, or, if you prefer to scull, I should be less comfortable, but resigned."
"It shall be the punt," Arnold decided, with a glance at the river. "Won't any one else come with us?"
Fenella shook her head.
"I am going to talk to Miss Lalonde," she said. "After we have had an opportunity of witnessing your skill, Mr. Chetwode, we may trust ourselves another time. Au revoir!"
They watched the punt glide down the stream, a moment or two later, Sabatini stretched between the red cushions with a cigarette in his mouth, Arnold handling his pole like a skilled waterman.
"You like my brother?" Fenella asked.
The girl looked at her gratefully.
"I think that he is the most charming person I ever knew in my life," she declared.