Even at that moment she noticed, half unconsciously, the clear-cut, patrician features, the delicate lines of the handsome face.
He had come to this mishap in his attempt to help her. He was dying, perhaps, in her service. A thrill ran through her, a thrill that moved her as by an uncontrollable impulse to bend still lower over him so that her lips almost touched his unconscious ones. Their nearness, the intent gaze of her eyes, now dark as violets, seemed to make themselves felt by him, seemed by some mysterious power to call him back from the shadow-land of unconsciousness. He moved and opened his eyes.
She started, and the colour flooded her face as if her lips had quite touched his, and her eyes grew heavy as, breathing painfully, she waited for him to entirely recover his intelligence and to speak.
"The steer!" he said at last, feebly.
She moistened her lips, and looked away from him as if she were afraid lest he should see what was in her eyes. "The steer is all right; but—but you!"
He forced a laugh. "Oh, I'm all right, too," he said. He looked around hazily. "I must have come a smasher over that bank!"
Then he saw that he was lying with his head upon her knee, and with a hot flush, the man's shame for his weakness in the presence of a woman, he struggled into a sitting posture and looked at her, looked at her with the forced cheerfulness of a man who has come an unforeseen, unexpected cropper of the first magnitude.
"It was my fault. You—you were right about the horse: he ought not to have slipped—Where's my hat? Oh here it is. The horse isn't lame, I hope?"
"No," she said, setting her teeth in her great effort to appear calm and unmoved. "He is standing beside Rupert—" She had got thus far when her voice broke, and she turned her face away quickly; but not so quickly that he did not see her exceeding pallor, the heavy droop of the lids, the sweep of the dark lashes on her white cheek.
"Why—what's the matter, Miss Heron?" he asked, anxiously, and with all a man's obtuseness. "Youdidn't happen to come to grief in any way? I didn't fall on you?—or anything? I—"
She tried to laugh, tried to laugh scornfully; for indeed she was filled with scorn for this sudden inexplicable weakness, a weakness which had never assailed her before in all her life, a weakness which filled her breast with rage; but from under the closed lids two tears crept and rolled down her cheek; and against her will she made confession of this same foolish weakness.
"It is nothing: I am very foolish—but I—I thought you were badly hurt—for the moment that you might even be—killed!"
He staggered to his feet and caught her hand and held it, looking at her with that look in a man's eyes which is stronger and fiercer than fire, and yet softer than water; the look which goes straight to a woman's heart.
"And you cared—cared so much?" he said, in a voice so low that she could scarcely hear it, hushed by the awe and wonder of passion.
She tried to withdraw her hand, biting her lips, setting them tightly, in her battle for calmness and her oldhauteurand indifference; but he held the small hand firmly, felt it quiver and tremble, saw the violet eyes raised to his with a troubled wonder in them; and her name sprang to his lips:
"Ida!" he breathed.
"Ida!" The name had sprung from his lips, from his heart, almost unconsciously; it did not seem strange to him, for he knew, as he spoke it, that he had called her so in his thoughts, that it had hovered on his lips ever since he had heard it. But to her—Who shall describe the subtle emotion which thrills through a girl's heart when she hears, for the first time from a strange man's lips, the name whose use hitherto has been reserved for her kith and kin?
She stood erect, but with her head bent, her eyes fixed on the ground, the name, his voice, ringing in her ears; her heart was beating almost painfully, as if with weight of a novel kind of fear, that yet was not altogether fear. Stafford looked at her with the man's, the lover's eagerness, but her face told him nothing. She was so ignorant of the very A B C of love that there was no start of surprise, no word or movement which might guide him; but his instant thought was that she was offended, angry.
"Forgive me!" he said. "You are angry because I called you—Ida! It was wrong and presumptuous; but I have learned to think of you by your name—and it slipped out. Are you very angry? Ah, you knew why I called you so? Don't you know that—I love you!"
She raised her eyes for a moment but did not look at him; they were fixed dreamily on the great hills in the distance, then drooped again, and her brows came together, her lips straightened with a still more marked expression of trouble, doubt, and wonder.
"I love you," he said, with the deep note of a man's passion in his voice. "I didn't mean to tell you, to speak—I didn't know until just now how it was with me: you see I am telling you everything, the whole truth! You will listen to me?"
For she had made a movement of turning away, a slow, heavy gesture as if she were encumbered by chains, as if she were under some spell from which she could not wake.
"I will tell you everything, at the risk of making you angry, at the risk of your—sending me away."
He paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his words with a care that sprang from his fear lest he should indeed rouse her anger and—lose her.
"The first day I saw you—you remember?"
As if she could forget! She knew as he asked the question that no trifling detail of that first meeting was forgotten, that every word was engraven on her memory.
"When I saw you riding down the hill, I thought I had never seen any girl so beautiful, so lovely—"
The colour rose slowly to her face, but died away again: the least vain of women is moved when a man tells her she is beautiful—in his eyes, at any rate.
"And when you spoke to me I thought I had never heard so sweet a voice; and if I had, that there had never been one that I so longed to hear again. You were not with me long, only a few minutes, but when I left you and trumped over the hill to the inn I could not get you out of my mind. I wondered who you were, and whether I should see you again." The horses moved, and instinctively she looked over her shoulder towards them.
"They will not go: they are quite quiet," he said. "Wait—ah, wait for a few minutes! I have a feeling that if I let you go I shall not see you again; and that would—that would be more than I could bear. That night at the inn the landlord told me about you. Of course he had nothing but praise and admiration for you—who would have any other? But he told me of the lonely life you led, of the care you took of your father, of your devotion and goodness; and the picture of you living at the great, silent house, without friends or companions—well, it haunted me! I could see it all so plainly—I, who am not usually quick at seeing things. As a rule, I'm not impressed by women—Howard says I am cold and bored—perhaps he's right; but I could not get you out of my mind. I felt that I wanted to see you again."
He paused again, as if the state of mind he was describing was a puzzle to himself—paused and frowned.
"I left the inn and started up the road—I suppose I wanted to get a glimpse of the house in which you lived. Yes; that must have been it. And then, all at once, I saw you. I remember the frock you wore that night—you looked like an angel, a spirit standing there in the moonlight, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Are you angry with me for saying so? Don't be; for I've got to tell you everything, and—and—it's difficult!"
He was silent a moment. Her head was still down-bent, her small white hand hung at her side; she was quite motionless but for the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of her bosom.
"When you came to me, when you spoke to me, my heart leapt as if—well, as if something good had happened to me—something that had never happened before. When I went away the picture of you standing at the door, waving your hand, went with me, and—stayed with me. I could not get you out of my mind—could think of nothing else. Even in the meeting with my father, whom I hadn't seen for so long, the thought of you kept with me. I tried to get rid of it—to forget you, but it was of no use: sleeping and waking, you—you were with me!"
His voice grew almost harsh in its intensity, and the hand that had hung so stilly beside her closed on the skirt of her dress in her effort to keep the hot blush from her face.
"When I rode out the next day it was only with the hope of seeing you. It seemed to me there was only one thing I wanted: to see you again; to look into your eyes, to hear you speak. All that I had heard about you—well, I dwelt upon it, and I felt that I must help you. It seemed as if Fate—Chance—oh, I don't know what to call it!—hadsentme to help you. And when I saw you—ah, well, I can't expect you to understand what I felt!"
He stopped again, as if he himself were trying to understand it.
"The feeling that fate had something to do with it—you see, it was quite by chance I started fishing that afternoon, that I saw you at the house—gave me courage to ask you to let me help you. It sounded ridiculous to you—of course it did!—but if you only knew how much it meant to me! It meant that I should see you again; perhaps every day for—for a long time: ah, well, it meant just life and death to me. And now—!"
His breath came fast, his eyes dwelt upon her with passionate eagerness; but he forced himself to speak calmly than he might not frighten her from his side, might not lose her.
—"Now the truth has come upon me, quite suddenly. It was just now when I saw that you cared what had happened to me, cared if I were hurt!—Oh, I know, it was just because you were frightened, it was just a woman's pity for a fellow that had come to harm, the fear lest I had broken any bones; but—ah, it showed me my heart, it told me how much I loved you! Yes; I love you! You are all the world to me: nothing else matters,nothing!"
Her lips quivered, but she did not speak, and the look of trouble, of doubt, did not leave her face. He waited, his eyes seeking hers, seeking them for some sign which might still the passion of fear and suspense with which he was battling, then he said in a low voice that thrilled with the tempest of emotion which raged under his forced calm:
"Will you not speak to me? Are you angry?"
She raised her head and looked at him—a strange look from so young a girl. It was as if she were fighting against the subtle spell of his words, the demand for her love which shone in his eyes.
"No, I am not angry," she said at last; and her voice, though very low, was calm and unshaken.
He made a movement towards her, but she shrank back, only a little, but perceptibly, and he checked the movement, the desire to take her in his arms.
"You are not angry? Then—Ida—I may call you so?—you don't mind my loving you? Dearest, will you love me just a little in return? Wait!" for she had shrunk again, this time more plainly. "Don't—don't answer without thinking! I know I have startled you, that I ought not to have spoken so soon, while you only know so little of me—you'd naturally say 'no,' and send me away. But if you think you can like me—learn to love me—"
He took her hand, hanging so temptingly near his own; but she drew it away.
"No; don't touch me!" she said, with a little catch in her voice. "I want to think—to understand." She paused for a moment, her eyes still seeking the distant hills, as if in their mysterious heights she might find something that should explain this great mystery, this wonderful thing that had happened to her. At last, with a singular gesture, so girlish, so graceful that it made him long still more intensely to take her in his arms, she said in a low voice:
"I do not know—No! I do not want you to touch me, please!" His hand fell to his side. "I can't answer you. It is so—so sudden! No one has ever spoken to me as you have done—"
He laughed from mere excess of joy, for her pure innocence, her unlikeness, in her ignorance of love and all pertaining to it, to the women he knew, made the charm of her well-nigh maddening. To think that he should be the first man to speak of love to her!
"I am not angry—ought I to be? Yes, I suppose so. We are almost strangers—have seen so little of each other."
"They say that love, all true love, comes at first sight," he said in his deep voice. "I used to laugh at the idea; but now I know it is true. I loved you the first time I met you, Ida!"
Her lip quivered and her brows knit.
"It seems so wonderful," she said, musingly, "I do not understand it. The first time! We scarcely spoke—and I was almost angry with you for fishing in the Heron. And I did—did not think of you—"
He made a gesture, repudiating the mere idea.
"Is it likely! Why should you?" he said. "I was just an ordinary man, crossing your path for the first and perhaps the only time. Good heavens! there was no reason why you should give a thought to me, why I should linger in your mind for half a moment after I was out of your sight. But for me—Haven't I told you how beautiful you are, Ida! You are the loveliest, the sweetest.—But, even if you had not been—I mean it is not because you are so beautiful that I love you—" She looked at him with a puzzled, troubled look.
"No! I can't explain. See, now, there's not a look of yours, not a feature that I don't know by heart as if I'd learnt it. When I am away from you I can see you—see the way your hair clusters in soft little curls at your forehead, the long lashes sweeping your cheek, the—the trick your eyes have of turning from grey to violet—oh, I know your face by heart, and Iloveit for its beauty; but if you were to lose it all, if you were not the loveliest creature God had ever made, it would make no difference. You would still beyou: and it is you I want. Ida—give yourself to me—trust me! Oh, dearest, you don't know what love is! Let me teach you!"
Once again he got hold of her hand; and she let it remain in his grasp; but her quiescence did not mean yielding, and he knew it.
"No," she said, with a deep breath. "It is true that I do not know. And I am—afraid." A wan little smile that was more piteous than tears curved her lips: for "afraid" seemed strange coming from her, the fearless child of the hills and dales. "If—if I said 'yes'—Ah, but I do not!" she broke off as he made to draw her to him, and she shrank back. "I do not! I said 'if,' it would not be true; it would not be fair. For I do not know. I might be—sorry, after—after you had gone. And it would be too late then."
"You're right," he assented, grimly. "Once I got you, no power on earth should make me let you go again."
Her lips quivered and her eyes drooped before his. How strange a thing this love was, that it should change a man so!
"I don't want to force you to answer," he said, after a pause. "Yes, I do! I'd give half the remainder of my life to hear you say the one word, 'yes.' But I won't. It's too—too precious. Ah, don't you understand! I want your love, your love, Ida!"
"Yes, I understand," she murmured. "And—and I would say it if—if I were sure. But I—yes, I am all confused. It is like a dream. I want to think, to ask myself if—if I can do what you want."
She put up her hand to her lips with a slight gesture, as if to keep them from trembling.
"I want to be alone to think of all—all you have told me."
Her gauntlet slipped from her hand, and he knelt on one knee and picked it up, and still kneeling, took both her hands in his. It did not occur to him to remember that the woman who hesitates is won; something in her girlish innocence, in her exquisitely sweet candour, filled him with awe.
"Dearest!" he said, in so low a voice that, the note of the curlew flying above them sounded loud and shrill by contrast. "Dearest!—for you are that to me!—I will not press you. I will be content to wait. God knows you are right to hesitate! Your love is too great, too precious a thing to be given to me without thought. I'm not worthy to touch you—but I love you! I will wait. You shall think of all I have said; and, let your answer be what it may, I won't complain! But—Ida—you mustn't forget that I love you with all my heart and soul!"
She looked down at his handsome face, the face over which her lips had hovered only a short time since, and her lips moved.
"You—you are good to me," she said, in a faintly troubled voice. "Yes,I know, I feel that. Perhaps I ought to say 'no!'"
"Don't!" he said, almost fiercely. "Wait! Let me see you again—you scarcely know me. Ah, Ida, what can I do, how can I win your love?"
She drew her hands from his with a deep breath.
"I—I will go now," she said. "Will you let me go—alone?"
He rose and went towards the horses. His own raised its head and seemed inclined to start, but stood uncertain and eventually remained quiet beside the chestnut. Stafford brought them to where Ida still stood, her eyes downcast, her face pale.
With his own bridle over his arm he put her into the saddle, resisting even in that supreme moment the almost irresistible desire to take her in his arms.
She murmured a "Thank you," as she slowly put on her left gauntlet. He drew the other from her, and as she looked at him questioningly, he put it to his lips and thrust it under his waistcoat, over his heart.
The colour flooded her face, but the blush was followed by the old look of trouble and doubt. She held out her ungloved right hand and he took it and held it for a moment, then raised it to his lips; but he did not kiss it.
"No!" he said, with stern repression. "I will take nothing—until you give it me."
She inclined her head the very slightest, as if she understood, as if she were grateful; then letting her eyes rest on his with an inscrutable look, she spoke softly to the horse and rode away, with Donald and Bess clamouring joyously after her, as if they had found the proceedings extremely trying.
Stafford flung his arm across his horse, and leaning against it, looked after her, his eyes fixed wistfully on the slight, graceful figure, until it was out of sight; then he gazed round him as if he were suddenly returning from a new, mysterious region to the old familiar world. Passion's marvellous spell still held him, he was still throbbing with a half-painful ecstasy of her nearness, of the touch of her hand, the magic of her voice.
For the first time he was in love. In love with the most exquisite, the most wonderful of God's divine creatures. He knew, as he had said, that her answer meant life or death to him, the life of infinite, nameless joy, the death of life in death.
Was he going to lose her?
The very question set him trembling. He held out his quivering hand and looked at it, and set his teeth. Heaven and earth, how strange it was! This girl had taken possession of him body and soul; every fibre of his being clamoured for her. To be near her, just to be able to see her, hear her, meant happiness; to be torn from her—
The sweat broke out on his forehead and he laughed grimly.
"And this is love!" he said, between his teeth. "Yes—and it's the only love of my life. God help me if you say 'no,' dearest! But you must not—you must not!"
Quite an hour after Stafford had started to meet Ida, Miss Falconer made her appearance, coming slowly down the stairs in the daintiest of morning frocks, with her auburn hair shining like old gold in the sunlight, and an expression of languor in her beautiful face which would have done credit to a hot-house lily.
She had slept the sleep of the just—the maid who had gone to wake her with her early cup of tea had been almost startled by the statuesqueness of her beauty, as she lay with her head pillowed on her snow-white arm and her wonderful hair streaming over the pillow—had suffered herself to be dressed with imperial patience, and looked—as Howard, who stood at the bottom of the stairs—said to himself, "like a queen of the Incas descending to her throne-room."
"Good-morning, Miss Falconer," he greeted her. "It's a lovely morning; you'll find it nicely aired." She smiled languidly.
"That means that I am late." she said, her eyes resting languidly on his cynically smiling face.
"Good heavens, no!" he responded. "You can't be late or early in this magic palace. Whenever you 'arrive' you will find things—'things' in the most comprehensive sense—ready for you. Breakfast at Brae Wood is the most moveable of feasts. I've proved that, for I'm a late bird myself; and to my joy I have learned that this is the only house with which I am acquainted that you can get red-hot bacon and kidneys at any hour from eight to twelve; that lunch runs plenteously from one to three, and that you can get tea and toast—my great and only weakness, Miss Falconer—whenever you like to ring for it. You will find Lady Clansford presiding at the breakfast-table: I believe she has been sitting there—amiable martyr as she is—since the early dawn."
She smiled at him with languid approval, as if he were some paid jester, and went into the breakfast-room. There were others there beside Lady Clansford—most of them the young people—it is, alas! only the young who can sleep through the bright hours of a summer's morn—and a discussion on the programme of the day was being carried on with a babel of voices and much laughter.
"You shall decide for us, Miss Falconer!" exclaimed one of the young men, whose only name appeared to be Bertie, for he was always addressed as and spoken of by it. "It's a toss-up between a drive and a turn on the lake in the electric launch.Iproposed a sail, but there seemed to be a confirmed and general scepticism as to my yachting capacities, and Lady Plaistow says she doesn't want to be drowned before the end of the season. What would you like to do?"
"Sit somewhere in the shade with a book," she replied, promptly but slowly.
There was a shout of laughter.
"That is just what Mr. Howard replied," said Bertie, complainingly.
"Oh, Mr. Howard! Everyone knows that he is the laziest man in the whole world," remarked Lady Clansford, plaintively. "What is Mr. Orme going to do? Where is he? Does anyone know?"
There was a general shaking of heads and a chorus of "Noes."
"I had a swim with him this morning, but I've not seen him since," said Bertie. "It's no use waiting for Orme; he mightn't turn up till dinner-time. Miss Falconer, if I promise not to drown you, will make one for the yacht? The man told me it would be all ready."
She shook her head as she helped herself to a couple of strawberries.
"No, thanks," she said, with her musical drawl. "I know what that means. You drift into the middle of the lake or the river, the wind drops, and you sit in a scorching sun and get a headache. Please leave me out. I shall stick to my original proposal. Perhaps, if you don't drown anyone this time, I may venture with you another day."
She leant back and smiled at them under her lids, as the discussion flowed and ebbed round her, with an air of placid contempt and wonder at their excitement; and presently, murmuring something to Lady Clansford, who, as chaperone and deputy hostess was trying to coax them into some decision, she rose and went out to the terrace.
There, lying back in a deck-chair, in a corner screened from any possible draught by the glass verandah, was Mr. Howard with one of Sir Stephen's priceless Havanas between his lips, a French novel in his hand, and a morning paper across his knees. He rose as she approached, and checking a sigh of resignation, offered her his chair.
"Oh, no," she said, with a smile which showed that she knew what the effort of politeness cost him. "You'd hate me if I took your chair, I know; and though, of course, I don't in the least care whether you hate me or not, I shouldn't like putting you to the trouble of so exhaustive an emotion."
Howard smiled at her with frank admiration.
"Let's compromise it," he said. "I'll drag that chair up here—it's out of the sun, you know—so, and arrange these cushions so, and put up the end for your feet so, and—how is that, Miss Falconer?"
"Thanks," she murmured, sinking into the soft nest he had made.
"Do you object to my cigar? Say so, if you do, and—"
"You'll go off to some other nook," she put in. "No, I like it."
His eye shone with keen appreciation: this girl was not only a beauty—which is almost common nowadays—but witty, which is rare.
"Thanks! Would you like the paper? Don't hesitate if you would; I'm not reading it; I never do. I keep it there so that I can put it over my face if I feel like sleeping—which I generally do."
She declined the paper with a gesture of her white hand. "No, I'd rather talk; which means that you are to talk and I'm to listen: will it exhaust you too much to tell me where the rest of the people are? I left a party in the breakfast-room squabbling over the problem how to kill time; but where are the others? My father, for instance?"
"He is in the library with Baron Wirsch, Mr. Griffenberg, and the other financiers. They are doubtless engaged in some mystic rites connected with the worship of the Golden Calf, rites in which the words 'shares,' 'stocks,' 'diamonds,' 'concessions,' appear at frequent intervals. I suppose your father, having joined them, is a member of the all-powerful sect of money-worshippers."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose so. And Mr. Orme—is he one of them?" she asked, with elaborate indifference.
Howard smiled cynically.
"Stafford! No; all that he knows about money is the art of spending it; and what he doesn't know about that isn't worth knowing. It slips through his fingers like water through a sieve; and one of those mysteries which burden my existence is, how he always manages to have some for a friend up a tree."
"Is he so generous, then?" she asked, with a delicate yawn behind her hand.
Howard nodded, and was silent for a moment, then he said musingly:
"You've got on my favorite subject—Stafford—Miss Falconer. And I warn you that if I go on I shall bore you."
"Well, I can get up and go away," she said, languidly. "He is a friend of yours, I suppose? By the way, did you know that he stopped those ridiculous horses last night and probably saved my life?"
"For goodness sake don't let him hear you say that, or even guess that you think it," he said, with an affectation of alarm. "Stafford would be inexpressibly annoyed. He hates a fuss even more than most Englishmen, and would take it very unkindly if you didn't let a little thing like that pass unnoticed. Oh, yes, I am his greatest friend. I don't think"—slowly and contemplatively—"that there is anything he wouldn't do for me or anything I wouldn't do for him—excepting get up early—go out in the rain—Oh, it isn't true! I'm only bragging," he broke off, with a groan. "I've done both and shall do them whenever he wants me to. I'm a poor creature, Miss Falconer." "A martyr on the altar of friendship," she said. "Mr. Orme must be very irresistible."
"He is," he assented, with an air of profound melancholy. "Stafford has the extremely unpleasant knack of getting everybody to do what he wants. It's very disgusting, but it's true. That is why he is so general a favourite. Why, if you walk into any drawing-room and asked who was the most popular man in London, the immediate and unanimous reply would be 'Stafford Orme.'"
She settled the cushions a little more comfortably.
"You mean amongst men?" she said.
Howard smiled and eyed her questioningly.
"Well—I didn't," he replied, drily.
She laughed a little scornfully.
"Oh, I know the sort of man he is," she said. "I've read and heard about them. The sort of man who falls in love with every woman he meet. 'A servant of dames'!"
Howard leant back and laughed with cynical enjoyment.
"You never were further out," he said. "He flirts—oh, my aunt, how he flirts!—but as to falling in love—Did you ever see an iceberg, Miss Falconer?"
She shook her head.
"Well, it's one of the biggest, the most beautiful frauds in the world. When you meet one sailing along in the Atlantic, you think it one of the nicest, sweetest things you ever saw: it's so dazzlingly bright, with its thousand and one colours glittering in the sunlight. You quite fall in love with it, and it looks so harmless, so enticing, that you're tempted to get quite close to it; which no doubt is amusing to the iceberg, but is slightly embarrassing for you; for the iceberg is on you before you know it, and—and there isn't enough left of you for a decent funeral. That's Stafford all the way. He's so pleasant, so frank, so lovable, that you think him quite harmless; but while you're admiring his confounded ingratiating ways, while you're growing enthusiastic about his engaging tricks—he's the best rider, the best dancer, the best shot—oh, but you must have heard of him!—he is bearing down upon you; your heart goes under, and he—ah, well, he just sails over you smiling, quite unconscious of having brought you to everlasting smash."
"You are indeed a friend," she said with languid irony.
"Oh, you think I'm giving him away?" he said. "My dear Miss Falconer, everybody knows him. Every ball-room every tennis-court, is strewed with his wrecks. And all the time he doesn't know it; but goes his way crowned with a modesty which is the marvel and the wonder of this most marvellous of ages."
"It sounds like a hero out of one of 'Ouida's' novels," she remarked, as listlessly as before.
But behind her lowered lids her eyes were shining with a singular brightness.
Howard turned to her delightedly.
"My dear Miss Falconer, if you were a man I should ask to shake hands with you. It so exactly describes him. That's just what he is. As handsome as the dew—I beg your pardon!—as frank as a boy, as gentle as a woman, as staunch as a bull-dog, as brave—he would have stopped a drayman's team just as readily as yours last night—and as invulnerable as that marble statue."
He pointed to a statue of Adonis which stood whitely on the edge of the lawn, and she raised her eyes and looked at it dreamily.
"I could break that thing if I had a big hammer," she said.
"I daresay," he said. "But can't break Stafford. Honestly "—he looked at her—"I wish you could!"
"Why?" she asked, turning her eyes on him for the first time.
Howard was silent for a moment, then he looked at her with a curious gravity.
"Because it would be good for him: because I am afraid for him."
"Afraid?" she echoed.
"Yes," he said, with a nod. "Some day he will run against something that will bring him to smash. Some woman—But I beg your pardon. Do you know, Miss Falconer, that you have a dangerous way of leading one to speak the truth—which one should never—or very rarely—do. Why, on earth am I telling you all this about Stafford Orme?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You were saying 'some woman,'" she said.
He gave a sigh of resignation.
"You are irresistible! Some woman who will be quite unworthy of him. It's always the case. The block of ice you can not smash with your biggest hammer is broken into smithereens by a needle. That's the peril before Stafford—but let us hope he will prove the exception to the rule and escape. He's safe at present, at any rate."
She thought of the scene she had witnessed, the girl sitting sideways onStafford Orme's horse, and her face flushed for an instant.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Quite!" he responded, confidently. "I know all Stafford's flirtations, great and small: if there was anything serious he would tell me; and as he hasn't—there isn't."
She laughed; the slow, soft laugh which made Howard think suddenly, strangely, of a sleepy tigress he had once watched in a rajah's zoo, as she lay basking in the sun: a thing of softness and beauty and—death.
"We've had a most amusing conversation, Mr. Howard," she said. "I don't know when I've been so interested—or so tempted."
"Tempted?" He looked at her with a slow, expectant smile.
"Oh, yes," she murmured, turning her eyes upon him with a half-mocking light in them. "You have forgotten that you have been talking to a woman."
"I don't deny it," he said. "It's the finest compliment I could pay you. But—after?"
"And that to a woman your account of your hero-friend is—a challenge."
He nodded and paused, with his cigar half-way to his lips.
"I'm greatly tempted to accept it, do you know!" she said.
He laughed.
"Don't: you'll be vanquished. Is that too candid, too—brutal?" he said.
"So brutal that Iwillaccept it," she said. "Is that ring of yours a favorite?"
"I've had it ever since I can remember. It was my mother's," he said, rather gravely.
She held out her hand, upon which the costly gems glittered in the sunlight.
"Choose one to set against it," she said quite quietly.
Howard, roused for once from his sleepy cynicism, met her gaze with something like astonishment.
"You mean—?" he said, in a low voice.
"I mean that I am going to try to meet your iceberg. You will play fair, Mr. Howard? You will stand and look on and—be silent?"
He smiled and leant back as if he had considered her strange, audacious proposal, and felt confident.
"On my honour," he said, with a laugh. "You shall have fair play!" She laughed softly. "You have not chosen my stake," she said meaningly.
"Ah, no. Pardon! Let me see." He took her hand and examined the rings."This—I think it's the most valuable."
"It does not matter," she said. "You will not win it. May I look at yours?"
He extended his hand with an amused laugh; but without a smile, she said:
"Yes, it is a quaint ring; I like quaint things. I shall wear it on my little finger."
She dropped his hand quickly, for at that moment Stafford rode round the bend of the drive. His face was grave and almost stern in its preoccupation, but he caught sight of them, and raised his hat, then turned his horse and rode up to the terrace.
"Good-morning, Stafford," exclaimed Howard. "Where have you been?Hallo! Anything happened? You're coated all over with mud: had a fall?"
He nodded carelessly as he turned to the beautiful girl, lying back now and looking up at his handsome face with an air of languid indifference.
"What a lovely day, Miss Falconer! Where are all the others? Are you not going for a drive, on the lake, somewhere?"
"I have just been asking Mr. Howard to take me for a row," she said, "but he has refused."
Stafford laughed and glanced at his watch.
"I can quite believe it: he's the laziest wretch in existence. If you'll transfer the offer to me, we'll go after lunch. By George, there's the bell!"
"Thanks!" she murmured, and she rose with her slow grace. "I'd better get into an appropriate costume. Mr. Howard, what will you bet me that it does not rain before we start. But you never bet, you tell me!"
"Not unless I am sure of winning, Miss Falconer," he said, significantly.
She looked after Stafford as he rode away to the stable.
"Nor I," she retorted, with a smile. "As you will see."
When Stafford and Maude Falconer went down to the lake after luncheon, they found a party from the Villa just embarking on board one of the launches; the air was filled with laughter and chatter, and the little quay was bright with the white flannels of the men and the gay frocks of the women. The party greeted the two with an exuberant welcome, and Bertie called out to ask them if they were coming on board.
"Perhaps you would rather go on the launch, Miss Falconer?" saidStafford; but she shook her head.
"No, thanks," she said, languidly. "I hate crowds of that kind. I'd rather stick to our original proposition; it will bore me less. But perhaps you'd rather join them?"
"Is it likely?" said Stafford, with a smile, as he signed to the man to bring up a skiff. "Now, let me make you as comfortable as I can. We ought to have had a gondola," he added, as he handed her to the seat in the stern.
She leant back with her sunshade over her shoulder, and Stafford, as he slipped off his blazer and rowed out towards the centre of the lake, looked at her with unconscious admiration. She was simply, perfectly dressed in a yachting costume of white and pale-blue, which set off to the fullest advantage her exquisite complexion and her red-gold hair. But it was admiration of the coldest kind, for even at that moment he was thinking of the girl in the well-worn habit, the girl he loved with a passion that made his slightest thought of her a psalm of worship.
And Maude, though she appeared half asleep, like a beautiful wild animal basking in the warmth of the sun, glanced at him now and again and noted the strength and grace of his figure, the almost Grecian contour of the handsome face. She had made her wager with Howard on the spur of the moment, prompted by the vanity of a woman piqued by the story of Stafford's indifference to her sex; but as she looked at him she wondered how a woman would feel if she fell in love with him. But she had no fears for herself; there was a coldness in her nature which had hitherto guarded her from the fever which men call love, and she thought herself quite secure. There would be amusement, triumph, in making him love her, in winning her wager with that cynical Mr. Howard, who boasted of his friend's invulnerability; and when she had conquered, and gratified her vanity—Ah, well, it would be easy to step aside and bring the curtain down upon her triumph and Stafford's discomfiture. She would wear that Mr. Howard's ring, and every time she looked at it, it should remind her of her conquest.
Stafford rowed on in silence for some minutes. His beautiful companion did not seem to want him to talk and certainly showed no desire to talk herself; so he gave himself up to thinking of Ida—and wishing that it was she who was sitting opposite him there, instead of this girl with the face of a Grecian goddess, with the lustrous hair of an houri. At last, feeling that he ought to say something, he remarked, as he gazed at the marvellous view:
"Very beautiful, isn't it?"
She raised her eyes and let them wander from the glittering water to the glorious hills.
"Yes, I suppose it is. I'm afraid I don't appreciate scenery as much as other people do. Perhaps it is because one is always expected to fall into raptures over it. Does that shock you? I'm afraid I shock most people. The fact is, I have been brought up in a circle which has taught me to loathe sentiment. They were always gushing about their feelings, but the only thing they cared for was money!"
"That ought to have made you loathe money," said Stafford, with a smile, and a certain kind of interest; indeed, it was difficult not to feel interested in this beautiful girl, with the face and the form of a goddess, and, apparently, as small a capacity of emotion.
"Oh, no," she said, languidly; "on the contrary, it showed me the value of money. I saw that if I had not been rich, the daughter of a rich man, I should have been of no account in their eyes. They were always professing to love me, but I was quite aware that it was because I was rich enough to be able to buy pleasure for them."
"Unpleasant kind of people," remarked Stafford.
"No; just the average," she said, coolly. "Nearly all men and women are alike—worldly, selfish, self-seeking. Look at my father," she went on, as coolly as before. "He thinks of nothing but money; he has spent his life fighting, scrambling, struggling for it; and look at yours—"
"Oh, hold on!" said Stafford, laughing, but reddening a little. "You're very much mistaken if you think my father is that kind of man."
She smiled.
"Why, everybody has some story of his—what shall I call it?—acuteness, sharpness; and of the wonderful way in which he has always got what he wanted. I don't want to be offensive, Mr. Orme, but I'm afraid both our fathers are in the same category. And that both would sacrifice anything or anyone to gain their ends."
Stafford laughed again.
"You're altogether wrong, Miss Falconer," he said. "I happen to know that my governor is one of the most generous and tender-hearted of men and that whatever he has gained it is by fair means, and by no sacrifice of others."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I envy your faith in him. But then you are a very enviable man, I'm told."
"As how?" asked Stafford. "Pretty here, isn't it? Here's one of those beastly steamers coming: they spoil the lake, but they're very convenient, I suppose."
She glanced at the big steamer puffing towards them obtrusively and sending a trail of smoke across the green and violet of the hills.
"Oh, I'm told you are the most popular man in London; that you have the world at your feet, that you are only waiting to see which duchess you prefer to throw your handkerchief to—"
Stafford coloured.
"What rot!—I beg your pardon, Miss Falconer. Of course, I know you are only chaffing me."
"Isn't it true—about the duchess, I mean?" she asked, so coolly, so indifferently, that Stafford was compelled to take her seriously.
"Nary a word," he said, brightly; then, with a sudden gravity: "If you happen to hear such nonsense again, Miss Falconer, you can, if you care to, contradict it flatly. I am not in the least likely to marry a duchess; indeed, I wouldn't marry the highest and greatest of them, if she'd have me, which is highly improbable."
"Do you mean to say that you have no ambition, that you would marry for—love?" she asked.
Stafford stopped rowing for a moment and looked at her grimly.
"What on earth else should I marry for?" he asked. "Wouldn't you?"
Before she could answer, the steamer came abreast of them, and so close that the swell from its screw set the slight, narrow skiff dancing and plunging on the waves.
Maude uttered a faint cry and leant forward, and Stafford, fearing she was going to rise, stretched out his hand, and touching her knee, forced her into her seat again, and kept her there until the swell had subsided.
The colour flooded her face at the pressure of his strong hand, which was like a steel weight, and she caught her breath. Then, as he took his hand away and resumed rowing, he said: "I beg your pardon! I was afraid you were going to get up—a girl I once had in a boat did so and we upset."
"The boat is very small," she said, in a low voice, almost one of apology.
"Oh, it's all right, so long as you sit still, and keep your head," he said. "It could ride over twice as big a swell as this."
She looked at him from under her lowered lids with a new expression in her face, a faint tremor on her lips; and, as if she could not meet his eyes, she glanced back with an affectation of interest at the steamer. As she did so, something dropped from it into the lake.
"What was that?" she said. "Something fell overboard."
"Eh? A man, do you mean?" he asked, stopping.
"Oh, no; something small."
"A parcel, somebody's lunch, perhaps," he said; and he rowed on.
She leant back, her eyes downcast; she still seemed to feel that strong, irresistible pressure of his hand under which she had been unable to move.
"There ought to be an echo somewhere here," he said, as they came opposite one of the hills, and he gave the Australian "coo-ee!" in a clear, ringing voice, which the echo sent back in a musical imitation.
"How true it was!" she said, and she opened her lips and sang a bar or two of the "Elsie" song.
Stafford listened to the echo, which was almost as soft and sweet as the girl's notes.
"What a wonderful voice you have!" he said, almost unconsciously. "I never heard a sweeter. What was that you sang?"
"That thing of Wagner's," she replied; and quite naturally she began the air and sang it through.
Stafford let the boat drift and leant upon the oars, his eyes fixed on her face, a rapt and very eloquent admiration in his own.
"Ah—beautiful!" he said in a low voice. "What a delight it must be to you to be able to sing like that! I can understand a whole theatre crying over that song sung as you sing it!"
She glanced at him with an affectation of languid amusement; but she was watching him intently.
"That's not the best in the opera," she said. "I like this better;" and she sang the "Swan" song; sang it so low that he leant forward to catch the notes which flowed like silver from her soft, red lips; and when she finished it he drew a long breath and still leant forward looking at her.
"Thank you, thank you!" he said, with so much of admiration and gratitude in his voice, that, as if to apologise for it, he said: "I'm fond of music. But I'm forgetting your tea! Shall we pull back to the Ferry Hotel and get some?"
"I'm in your hands," she replied, languidly.
He turned-the boat and pulled back along the centre of the lake in silence. Suddenly she bent forward.
"There is something in the water," she said; "something alive."
"It's a—yes, it's a dog," he said. "That is what you saw drop over the steamer. By George! the poor little chap looks in distress: seems as if he were nearly done. Can you steer?" he asked, sharply.
"Oh, yes," she replied, languidly. "Why?"
"Because I'm going for him, and it will help me if you can steer straight for him. He looks nearly played out."
"Why should you trouble—it's a long way off; it will be drowned before you can get to it," she said.
"I'll have to go for it anyway," he said, cheerfully; and he began to row hard.
Distance is deceptive on a lake, and the dog was farther off than they thought; but Stafford put his back into it as hard as he had done in his racing days, and Maude Falconer leant back and watched him with interest, and something even stronger than interest, in her masked eyes. He had turned up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, and the muscles on his arms were standing out under the strain, his lips were set tightly, and there was the man's frown of determination on his brow.
"It has gone down: it's no use," she said. "You may as well stop and rest."
He looked over his shoulder.
"No! He has come up again!" he exclaimed: it was noticeable that he called the dog "he," while she spoke of it as "it." "We shall get him in time. Keep the boat straight!"
The words were uttered in a tone of command, and they moved her as the touch of his hand had done; and she set her mind upon the task as she had never before set it upon anything.
Reaching well forward, pulling with the long, steady stroke of the practised oarsman, Stafford sent the boat along like an arrow, and presently he drove it up to the spot where the dog strove in its death straggle.
It was a tiny black-and-tan terrier, and Stafford, as he looked over his shoulder, saw the great eyes turned to him with a piteous entreaty that made his heart ache.
"Turn the boat—quick!" he cried; and as the skiff slid alongside the dog, he swooped it up.
The mite gave a little gasping cry like a child, and closing its eyes sank into Stafford's arms with a shudder.
"Is it dead?" asked Maude Falconer, looking not at the dog but at Stafford, for his face, which had been red with exertion a moment ago, had become suddenly pale.
"I don't know—no!" he said, absently, all his thoughts centered on the dog.
He wiped it as dry as he could with his blazer, then turning aside, he opened his shirt and put the cold morsel in his bosom.
"Poor little beggar, he's like ice!" he said, in a low voice. "He would never have got to the shore; he's so small. If I'd some brandy! We'll get some at the ferry. Can you row?"
"No," she said. "Yes; I mean, I'll try."
He held out his hand.
"Mind how you cross. Take off your gloves first, or you'll blister your hands."
She obeyed, her eyes downcast. They exchanged places and he showed her how to hold the sculls.
"You'll do very well. You can row as slowly as you like. He's alive; I can feel him move! Poor little chap! Sorry to trouble you, Miss Falconer, but the only chance of saving him is to keep him warm."
She was silent far a moment, then she glanced at him.
"You're fond of dogs?"
"Why, of course," he answered. "Aren't you?"
"Y-es; but I don't think I'd risk pneumonia for one. You were feverishly hot just now, and that little beast must be stone cold; you'll get bronchitis or something, Mr. Orme."
"Not I!" he laughed, almost scornfully. "He's pulling round, poor little beast! Here we are."
He reached for his coat and wrapped the terrier in it, and quite unconscious of the girl's watchful eyes, held the little black-and-tan head to his face for a moment.
"All right now?" he murmured. "You've had a narrow squeak for it, old chappie!" With the dog under his arm, he helped Maude Falconer ashore and led the way to the hotel.
"Tea," he said to the waiter; "but bring me some brandy and milk first—and look sharp."
Maude sank on to one of the benches in the beautiful garden in the centre of the lake and looked straight before her; and Stafford cuddled the dog up to him and looked impatiently for the waiter, greeting him when he came with:
"What an infernal time you're been!"
Then he poured a little of the brandy down the dog's throat, and bending over him repeated the dose three or four times; and presently the mite stirred and moved its head, and opening its eyes looked up into Stafford's, and weakly putting out its tongue, licked his hand.
Stafford laughed—for the well-known reason.
"Plucky little chap, isn't he?" he said, with a moved man's affectation of levity. "He's made a splendid fight for it and won through. He's a pretty little morsel—a well-bred 'un: wonder whom he belongs to?"
"To you—at least his life does," said Maude Falconer. "You couldn't have fought harder for it if it had been a human being."
"Oh, a dog's the next thing, you know," he said, apologetically. "I'm afraid it's been an awful nuisance and trouble for you. You haven't blistered your hands, I hope? Let me see!"
She stretched out her hands, palm upwards, and he took them and examined them.
"No. That's all right! 'All's well that ends well.' You want a few lessons with the sculls, Miss Falconer, and you'd make a splendid boat-woman. Perhaps you'd let me give you one or two?"
"Thank you; yes," she said; and to his surprise with less of her usual half-scornful languor.
"Here's the tea. Any particular kind of cake you fancy?"
She said that the cakes would do, and poured out the tea; but he put some milk into his saucer and gave some to the terrier, slowly, methodically, and with a tenderness and gentleness which was not lost upon the girl who watched him covertly before paying any attention to his own tea.
"I wonder whether you could stand, my little man," he said, and he put the terrier on the ground.
It stood upright and shivering for a moment, then it put its tiny paws on Stafford's knee and looked up into his face appealingly. "Not up to your usual form just yet, eh?" said Stafford, and he picked it up gently and put it on his knee.
Maude Falconer looked at him.
"Give it to me," she said. "Men have no lap. He'll be more comfortable with me."
"But he's wet still," he said. "He'll spoil that pretty dress of yours."
"My pretty dress was made to be spoiled," she said, "Give it to me, please, and get your tea."
"Do you mean it?" he asked, with a surprise which made her flush with resentment, and something like shame.
For reply, she bent forward, took the dog from him, and tried to settle it on her lap; but the mite looked piteously at Stafford and whined, its big eyes imploring him to let it come back.
But Stafford stroked it and bade it sit still, and presently it curled itself up.
"It has gone to sleep," said Maude. "It has soon forgotten its trouble."
"It's a way dogs have," said Stafford. "May I smoke? George! what a lovely afternoon!"
She glanced at him as he leant back in his chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed before him.
"You look happy," she said, with a faint smile.
"Oh, I am," he said, with a sudden flush and a start; for now the dog was off his mind, it had instantly swung back to Ida.
"It's the reward of a generous action," she said, and again, the mocking note was absent from her voice.
Stafford laughed.
"That's putting it rather high," he said.
They sat on in silence: Stafford thinking of Ida, Maude looking down at the sleeping dog, and thinking that only a few minutes ago it had been lying in the bosom of the man who sat beside her: the man whom she had backed herself to fool; but for whom a strange sensation of admiration—and was it a subtle fear?—was stirring within her.
"By George! we must be going!" he said, suddenly.
When they got to the boat he proposed to roll the terrier in his coat, but Maude shook her head.
"I'll nurse it going home," she said.
"You will? That's very good of you!" he said, quite gratefully.
"He's a lucky little beggar!" he remarked, after awhile, as he looked at the black little morsel curled up on the pretty dress. "Supposing he isn't claimed, would you care to have him, Miss Falconer?"
She looked down at the dog.
"Thank you," she said. "But what shall I give you in return. It's unlucky to give an animal without some consideration."
"Oh, give me another song," he replied. "There is nobody about."
She opened her lips, then checked herself.
"No, I can't sing again," she said, in a low voice.
"Oh, all right. It isn't good for you to sing too much in the open air. I'll wait till this evening, if you'll be good enough to sing for us then."
They landed and walked up to the house. As they reached the bend leading to the entrance path, she stopped and held out the dog, which had been staring at Stafford and whining at intervals.
"Take it, please. It is fretting for you, and I'd rather not keep it."
"Really?" he said, and she saw his face brighten suddenly. "All right, if you'd rather. Come here, little man! What's your name, I wonder? What shall we call him while we've got him?"
"Call him 'Tiny;' he's small enough," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Tiny it is!" he assented, brightly. "He'll answer to it in a day or two, you'll see. I hope you haven't quite spoilt your dress, Miss Falconer, and won't regret your row!"
She looked at her dress, but there was a sudden significance in her slow, lingering response.
"I—don't—know!"
As she went up the stairs she looked over the rail and saw Stafford's tall figure striding down the hall. He was softly pulling the terrier's ears and talking to it in the language dogs understand and love; and when she sank into a chair in her room, his face with its manly tenderness was still before her, his deep musical voice, with its note of protection and succour, still rang in her ears.
She sat quite motionless for a minute or two, then she rose and went to the glass and looked at herself; a long, intent look.
"Yes, I am beautiful," she murmured, not with the self-satisfaction of vanity, but with a calculating note in her voice. "Am I—am I beautiful enough?"
Then she swung away from the glass with the motion which reminded Howard of a tigress, and, setting her teeth hard, laughed with self-scorn; but with something, also, of fear in the laugh.
"I am a fool!" she muttered. "It can't be true. So soon! So suddenly!Oh, I can't be such a fool!"