“Is there anything wrong with my hair, Mr Brood?” asked Lydia, with a nervous little laugh.
They were in the study, and it was ten o'clock of a wet night in April. Of late he had required her to spend the evenings with him in a strenuous effort to complete the final chapters of the journal. The illness of Mr Dawes had interrupted the work, and he was now in a fever of impatience to make up for the lost time. He had declared his intention to go abroad with his wife as soon as the manuscript was completed. The editor of a magazine, a personal friend, had signified his willingness to edit the journal and to put it into shape for publication during the summer months, against Brood's return in the fall of the year.
The master of the house spared neither himself nor Lydia in these last few weeks. He wanted to clear up everything before he went away. Lydia's willingness to devote the extra hours to his enterprise would have pleased him vastly if he had not been afflicted by the same sense of unrest and uneasiness that made incessant labour a boon to her as well as to him.
Her query followed a long period of silence on his part. He had been suggesting alterations in her notes as she read them to him, and there were frequent lulls when she made the changes as directed. Without looking at him she felt, rather than knew, that he was regarding her fixedly from his position opposite. The scrutiny was disturbing to her. She hazarded the question for want of a better means of breaking the spell. Of late he had taken to watching her with moody interest. She knew that he was mentally commenting on the changes he could not help observing in her appearance and her manners. This intense, though perhaps unconscious, scrutiny annoyed her. Her face was flushed with embarrassment, her heart was beating with undue rapidity.
Brood started guiltily.
“Your hair?” he exclaimed. “Oh, I see. You women always feel that something is wrong with it. I was thinking of something else, however. Forgive my stupidity. We can't afford to waste time in thinking, you know, and I am a pretty bad offender. It's nearly half-past ten. We've been hard at it since eight o'clock. Time to knock off. I will walk around to your apartment with you, my dear. It looks like an all-night rain.”
He went up to the window and pulled the curtains aside. Her eyes followed him.
“It's such a short distance, Mr Brood,” she said. “I am not afraid to go alone.”
He was staring down into the court, his fingers grasping the curtains in a rigid grip. He did not reply.
There was a light in the windows opening out upon Yvonne's balcony.
“I fancy Frederic has come in from the concert,” he said slowly. “He will take you home, Lydia. You'd like that better, eh?”
He turned toward her, and she paused in the nervous collecting of her papers. His eyes were as hard as steel, his lips were set.
“Please don't ask Frederic to———” she began hurriedly.
“They must have left early,” he muttered, glancing at his watch. Returning to the table he struck the big, melodious gong a couple of sharp blows. For the first time in her recollection it sounded a jangling, discordant note, as of impatience.
She felt her heart sink; an oppressing sense of alarm came over her.
“Good night, Mr Brood. Don't think of coming home with———”
“Wait, Frederic will go with you.” It was a command. Ranjab appeared in the doorway. “Have Mrs Brood and Mr Frederic returned, Ranjab?”
“Yes,sahib. At ten o'clock.”
“If Mr Frederic is in his room, send him to me.”
“He is not in his room,sahib.”
The two, master and man, looked at each other steadily for a moment. Something passed between them.
“Tell him that Miss Desmond is ready to go home.”
“Yes,sahib.” The curtains fell.
“I prefer to go home alone, Mr Brood,” said Lydia, her eyes flashing. “Why did you send———”
“And why not?” he demanded harshly. She winced, and he was at once sorry. “Forgive me. I am tired and—a bit nervous. And you, too, are tired. You've been working too steadily at this miserable job, my dear child. Thank Heaven, it will soon be over. Pray sit down. Frederic will soon be here.”
“I am not tired,” she protested stubbornly. “I love the work. You don't know how proud I shall be when it comes out, and—and I realise that I helped in its making. No one has ever been in a position to tell the story of Tibet as you have told it, Mr Brood. Those chapters will make history. I———”
“Your poor father's share in those explorations is what really makes the work valuable, my dear. Without his notes and letters I should have been feeble indeed.” He looked at his watch. “They were at the concert, you know—the Hungarian orchestra. A recent importation, 'Tzigane's' music. Gipsies.” His sentences as well as his thoughts were staccato, disconnected.
Lydia turned very cold. She dreaded the scene that now seemed unavoidable. Frederic would come in response to his father's command, and then———
Someone began to play upon the piano downstairs. She knew, and he knew, that it was Frederic who played. For a long time they listened. The air, no doubt, was one he had heard during the evening, a soft, sensuous waltz that she had never heard before. The girl's eyes were upon Brood's face. It was like a graven image.
“God!” fell from his stiff lips. Suddenly he turned upon the girl. “Do you know what he is playing?”
“No,” she said, scarcely above a whisper.
“It was played in this house by its composer before Frederic was born. It was played here on the night of his birth, as it had been played many times before. It was written by a man named Feverelli. Have you heard of him?”
“Never,” she murmured, and shrank, frightened by the deathlike pallor in the man's face, by the strange calm in his voice. The gates were being opened at last! She saw the thing that was to stalk forth. She would have closed her ears against the revelations it carried. “Mother will be worried if I am not at home———”
“Guido Feverelli. An Italian born in Hungary. Budapest, that was his home, but he professed to be a gipsy. Yes, he wrote the devilish thing. He played it a thousand times in that room down——— And now Frederic plays it, after all these years. It is his heritage. God, how I hate the thing! Ranjab! Where is the fellow? He must stop the accursed thing. He———”
“Mr Brood! Mr Brood!” cried Lydia, appalled. She began to edge toward the door.
By a mighty effort Brood regained control of himself. He sank into a chair, motioning for her to remain. The music had ceased abruptly.
“He will be here in a moment,” said Brood. “Don't go.”
They waited, listening. Ranjab entered the room; so noiseless was his approach that neither heard his footsteps.
“Well?” demanded Brood, looking beyond.
“Master Frederic begs a few minutes' time,sahib. He is putting down on paper the music, so that he may not forget. He writes the notes,sahib. Madameassists.”
Brood's shoulders sagged. His head was bent, but his gaze never left the face of the Hindu.
“You may go, Ranjab,” he said slowly.
“Ten minutes he asks for,sahib, that is all.” The curtains fell behind him once more.
“So that he may not forget!” fell from Brood's lips. He was looking at the girl, but did not address his words to her. “So that he may not forget! So that I, too, may not forget!”
Suddenly he arose and confronted the serene image of the Buddha. For a full minute he stood there with his hands clasped, his lips moving as if in prayer. No sound came from them.
The girl remained transfixed, powerless to move. Not until he turned toward her and spoke was the spell broken. Then she came quickly to his side. He had pronounced her name.
“You are about to tell me something, Mr Brood,” she cried in great agitation. “I do not care to listen. I feel that it is something I should not know. Please let me go now. I———”
He laid his hands upon her shoulders, holding her off at arm's length.
“I am very fond of you, Lydia. I do not want to hurt you. Sooner would I have my tongue cut out than it should wound you by a single word. Yet I must speak. You love Frederic. Is not that true?”
She returned his gaze unwaveringly. Her face was very white.
“Yes, Mr Brood.”
“I have known it for some time, although I was the last to see. You love him, and you are just beginning to realise that he is not worthy.”
“Mr Brood!”
“Your eyes have been opened.” She stared, speechless. “My poor girl, he was born to prove that honest love is the rarest thing in all this world.”
“Oh, I beg of you, Mr Brood, don't———”
“It is better that we should talk it over. We have ten minutes. No doubt he has told you that he loves you. He is a lovable boy, he is the kind onemustlove. But it is not in his power to love nobly. He loves lightly as”—he hesitated, and then went on harshly—“as his father before him loved.”
Anger dulled her understanding; she did not grasp the full meaning of his declaration. Her honest heart rose to the defence of Frederic.
“Mr Brood, I do care for Frederic,” she flamed, standing very erect before him. “He is not himself, he has not been himself since she came here. Oh, I am fully aware of what I am saying. He is not to be blamed for this thing that has happened to him. No one is to blame. It had to be. I can wait, Mr Brood. Frederic loves me. I know he does. He will come back to me. You have no right to say that he loves lightly, ignobly. You do not know him as I know him. You have never tried to know him, never wanted to know him. You—oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Brood. I—I am forgetting myself.”
“I am afraid you do not understand yourself, Lydia,” said he levelly. “You are young, you are trusting. Your lesson will cost you a great deal, my dear.”
“You are mistaken. I do understand myself,” she said gravely. “May I speak plainly, Mr Brood?”
“Certainly. I intend to speak plainly to you.”
“Frederic loves me. He does not love Yvonne. He is fascinated, as I also am fascinated by her, and you, too, Mr Brood. The spell has fallen over all of us. Let me go on, please. You say that Frederic loves like his father before him. That is true. He loves but one woman. You love but one woman, and she is dead. You will always love her. Frederic is like you. He loves Yvonne as you do—oh, I know it hurts! She cast her spell over you, why not over him? Is he stronger than you? Is it strange that she should attract him as she attracted you? You glory in her beauty, her charm, her perfect loveliness, and yet you love—yes,love, Mr Brood—the woman who was Frederic's mother. Do I make my meaning plain? Well, so it is that Frederic loves me. I am content to wait. I know he loves me.”
Through all this Brood stared at her in sheer astonishment. He had no feeling of anger, no resentment, no thought of protest.
“You—you astound me, Lydia. Is this your own impression, or has it been suggested to you by—by another?”
“I am only agreeing with you when you say that he loves as his father loved before him—but not lightly. Ah, not lightly, Mr Brood.”
“You don't know what you are saying,” he muttered.
“Oh, yes, I do,” she cried earnestly. “You invite my opinion; I trust you will accept it for what it is worth. Before you utter another word against Frederic, let me remind you that I have known both of you for a long, long time. In all the years I have been in this house I have never known you to grant him a tender, loving word. My heart has ached for him. There have been times when I almost hated you. He feels your neglect, your harshness, your—your cruelty. He———”
“Cruelty!”
“It is nothing less. You do not like him. I cannot understand why you should treat him as you do. He shrinks from you. Is it right, Mr Brood, that a son should shrink from his father as a dog cringes at the voice of an unkind master? I might be able to understand your attitude toward him if your unkindness was of recent origin, but———”
“Recent origin?” he demanded quickly.
“If it had begun with the advent of Mrs Brood,” she explained frankly, undismayed by his scowl. “I do not understand all that has gone before. Is it surprising, Mr Brood, that your son finds it difficult to love you? Do you deserve———”
Brood stopped her with a gesture of his hand.
“The time has come for frankness on my part. You set me an example, Lydia. You have the courage of your father. For months I have had it in my mind to tell you the truth about Frederic, but my courage has always failed me. Perhaps I use the wrong word. It may be something very unlike cowardice that has held me back. I am going to put a direct question to you first of all, and I ask you to answer truthfully. Would you say that Frederic is like—that is, resembles his father?” He was leaning forward, his manner intense.
Lydia was surprised.
“What an odd thing to say! Of course he resembles his father. I have never seen a portrait of his mother, but———”
“You mean that he looks like me?” demanded Brood.
“Certainly. What do you mean?”
Brood laughed, a short, ugly laugh—and then fingered his chin nervously.
“He resembles his mother,” he said.
“When he is angry he is very much like you, Mr Brood. I have often wondered why he is unlike you at other times. Now I know. He is like his mother. She must have been lovely, gentle, patient———”
“Wait! Suppose I were to tell you that Frederic is not my son?”
“I should not believe you, Mr Brood,” she replied flatly. “What is it that you are trying to say to me?”
He turned away abruptly.
“I will not go on with it. The subject is closed. There is nothing to tell—at present.”
She placed herself in front of him, resolute and determined.
“I insist, Mr Brood. The timehascome for you to be frank. You must tell me what you meant by that remark.”
“Has your mother never told you anything concerning my past life?” he demanded.
“What has my mother to do with your past life?” she inquired, suddenly afraid.
“I refer only to what she may have heard from your father. He knew more than any of them. I confided in him to a great extent. I had to unburden myself to someone. He was my best friend. It is not improbable that he repeated certain parts of my story to your mother.”
“She has told me that you—you were not happy, Mr Brood.”
“Is that all?”
“I—I think so.”
“Is that all?” he insisted.
“When I was a little girl I heard my father say to her that your life had been ruined by—well, that your marriage had turned out badly,” she confessed haltingly.
“What more did he say?”
“He said—I remember feeling terribly about it—he said you had driven your wife out of this very house.”
“Did he speak of another man?”
“Yes. Her music-master.”
“You were too young to know what that meant, eh?”
“I knew that you never saw her after—after she left this house.”
“Will you understand how horrible it all was if I say to you now that—Frederic is not my son?”
Her eyes filled with horror.
“How can you say such a thing, Mr Brood? He is your son. How can you say———”
“His father is the man who wrote the accursed waltz he has just been playing! Could there be anything more devilish than the conviction it carries? After all these years, he———”
“Stop, Mr Brood!”
“I am sorry if I hurt you, Lydia. You have asked me why I hate him. Need I say anything more?”
“You have only made me love him more than ever before. You cannot hurt me through Frederic.”
“I am sorry that it has come to such a pass as this. It is not right that you should be made to suffer, too.”
“I do not believe all that you have told me. Heisyour son. Heis, Mr Brood.”
“I would to God I could believe that!” he cried in a voice of agony. “I would to God it were true!”
“You could believe it if you chose to believe your own eyes, your own heart.” She lowered her voice to a half whisper. “Does—does Frederic know? Does he know that his mother—oh, I can't believe it!”
“He does not know.”
“And you did drive her out of this house?” Brood did not answer. “You sent her away and and kept her boy, the boy who was nothing to you? Nothing!”
“I kept him,” he said, with a queer smile on his lips.
“All these years? He never knew his mother?”
“He has never heard her name spoken.”
“And she?”
“I only know that she is dead. She never saw him after—after that day.”
“And now, Mr Brood, may I ask why you have always intended to tell me this dreadful thing?” she demanded, her eyes gleaming with a fierce, accusing light.
He stared. “Doesn't—doesn't it put a different light on your estimate of him? Doesn't it convince you that he is not worthy of———”
“No! A thousand times no!” she cried. “I love him. If he were to ask me to be his wife tonight I would rejoice—oh, I would rejoice! Someone is coming. Let me say this to you, Mr Brood: you have brought Frederic up as a butcher fattens the calves and swine he prepares for slaughter. You are waiting for the hour to come when you can kill his very soul with the weapon you have held over him for so long, waiting, waiting, waiting! In God's name, what hashedone that you should want to strike him down after all these years? It is in my heart to curse you, but somehow I feel that you are a curse to yourself. I will not say that I cannot understand how you feel about everything. You have suffered. I know you have, and I—I am sorry for you. And knowing how bitter life has been for you, I implore you to be merciful to him who is innocent.”
The man listened without the slightest change of expression. The lines seemed deeper about his eyes, that was all. But the eyes were bright and as hard as the steel they resembled.
“You would marry him?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Knowing that he is a scoundrel?”
“How dare you say that, Mr Brood?”
“Because,” said he levelly, “hethinkshe is my son.” Voices were heard on the stairs, Frederic's and Yvonne's. “He is coming now, my dear,” he went on, and then, after a pause fraught with significance, “and my wife is with him.”
Lydia closed her eyes, as if in dire pain. A dry sob was in her throat.
A strange thing happened to Brood, the man of iron. Tears suddenly rushed to his eyes.
Yvonne stopped in the doorway. Ranjab was holding the curtains aside for her to enter. The tall figure of Frederic loomed up behind her, his dark face glowing in the warm light that came from the room. She had changed her dress for an exquisite orchid-coloured tea-gown of chiffon under the rarest and most delicate of lace. For an instant her gaze rested on Lydia, and then went questioningly to Brood's face. The girl's confusion had not escaped her notice. Her husband's manner was but little less convicting. Her eyes narrowed.
“Ranjab said you were expecting us,” she said slowly, with marked emphasis on the participle. She came forward haltingly, as if in doubt as to her welcome. “Are we interrupting?”
“Of course not,” said Brood, a flush of annoyance on his cheek. “Lydia is tired. I sent Ranjab down to ask Frederic to——”
Frederic interrupted, a trifle too eagerly. “I'll walk around with you, Lydia. It's raining, however. Shall I get the car out, father?”
“No, no!” cried Lydia, painfully conscious of the rather awkward situation. “And please don't bother, Freddy. I can go home alone. It's only a step.” She moved toward the door, eager to be away.
“I'll go with you,” said Frederic decisively. He stood between her and the door, an embarrassed smile on his lips. “I've got something to say to you, Lydia,” he went on, lowering his voice.
“James dear,” said Mrs Brood, shaking her finger at her husband, and with an exasperating smile on her lips, “you are working the poor girl too hard. See how late it is! And how nervous she is. Why, you are trembling, Lydia! For shame, James.”
“I am a little tired,” stammered Lydia. “We are working so hard, you know, in order to finish the———”
Brood interrupted, his tone sharp and incisive.
“The end is in sight. We're a bit feverish over it, I suppose. You see, my dear, we have just escaped captivity in Thassa. It was a bit thrilling, I fancy. But we've stopped for the night.”
“So I perceive,” said Yvonne, a touch of insolence in her voice. “You stopped, I dare say, when you heard the tread of the vulgar world approaching the inner temple. That is what you broke into and desecrated, wasn't it?”
“The inner temple at Thassa,” he said coldly.
“Certainly. The place you were escaping from when we came in.”
It was clear to all of them that Yvonne was piqued, even angry. She deliberately crossed the room and threw herself upon the couch, an act so childish, so disdainful, that for a full minute no one spoke, but stared at her, each with a different emotion.
Lydia's eyes were flashing. Her lips parted, but she withheld the angry words that rose to them.
Brood's expression changed slowly from dull anger to one of incredulity, which swiftly gave way to positive joy. His wife was jealous!
Frederic was biting his lips nervously. He allowed Lydia to pass him on her way out, scarcely noticing her, so intently was his gaze fixed upon Yvonne. When Brood followed Lydia into the hall to remonstrate, the young man sprang eagerly to his stepmother's side.
“Good Lord, Yvonne!” he whispered, “that was a nasty thing to say. What will Lydia think? By gad, is it possible that you are jealous? Of Lydia?”
“Jealous?” cried she, struggling with her fury. “Jealous of that girl? Poof! Why should I be jealous of her? She hasn't the blood of a potato!”
“I can't understand you,” he said in great perplexity. “You—you told me to-night that you are not sure that you really love him. You———”
She stopped him with a quick gesture. Her eyes were smouldering. “Where is he? Gone away with her? Go and look; do.”
“They're in the hall. I shall take her home, never fear. I fancy he's trying to explain your insinuating———”
She turned on him furiously. “Are you lecturing me? What a tempest in a teapot!”
“Lydia's as good as gold. She———”
“Then take her home at once,” sneered Yvonne. “This is no place for her.”
Frederic paled. “You're not trying to say my father would—good Lord, Yvonne, you must be crazy! Why, that is impossible! If—if I thought———” He clenched his fists and glared over his shoulder, missing the queer little smile that flitted across her face.
“You do love her then,” she said, her voice suddenly soft and caressing.
He stared at her in complete bewilderment.
“I—I—Lord, you gave me a shock!” He passed his hand across his moist forehead. “It can't be so. Why, the very thought of it———”
“I suppose I shall have to apologise to Lydia,” said she calmly. “Your father will exact it of me, and I shall obey. How does it sound, coming from me? 'I am sorry, Lydia.' Do I say it prettily?”
“I don't understand you at all, Yvonne. I adore you, and yet, by Heaven, I—I actually believe I hated you just now. Listen to me. I've been treating Lydia vilely for a long, long time, but—she's the finest, best, dearest girl in the world. You—even you, Yvonne—shall not utter a word against———”
“Aïe!What heroics!” she cried ironically. “You are splendid when you are angry, my son. Yes, you are almost as splendid as your father. He, too, has been angry with me. He, too, has made me shudder. But he, too, has forgiven me, as you shall this instant. Say it, Freddy. You do forgive me? I was mean, nasty, ugly, vile—oh, everything that's horrid. I take it all back. Now be nice to me!”
She laid her hand on his arm, an appealing little caress that conquered him in a flash. He clasped her fingers fiercely in his and mumbled incoherently as he leaned forward, drawn resistlessly nearer by the strange magic that was hers.
“You—you are wonderful,” he murmured. “I knew you'd regret what you said. You couldn't have meant it.”
She smiled, patted his hand gently, and allowed her swimming eyes to rest on his for an instant to complete the conquest. Then she motioned him away. Brood's voice was heard in the doorway. She had, however, planted an insidious thing in Frederic's mind, and it would grow.
Her husband re-entered the room, his arm linked in Lydia's. Frederic was at the table lighting a cigarette.
“You did not mean all that you said a moment ago, Yvonne,” said Brood levelly. “Lydia misinterpreted your jest. You meant nothing unkind, I am sure.”
He was looking straight into her rebellious eyes. The last gleam of defiance died out of them as he spoke.
“I am sorry, Lydia darling,” she said, and reached out her hand to the girl who approached reluctantly, uncertainly. “I confess that I was jealous. Why shouldn't I be jealous? You are so beautiful, so splendid.” She drew the girl down beside her. “Forgive me, dear.”
Lydia, whose honest heart had been so full of resentment the moment before, could not withstand the humble appeal in the voice of the penitent.
She smiled, first at Yvonne, then at Brood, and never quite understood the impulse that ordered her to kiss the warm, red lips that so recently had offended.
“James dear,” fell softly, alluringly, from Yvonne's now tremulous lips. He sprang to her side. She kissed him passionately. “Now we are all ourselves once more,” she gasped a moment later, her eyes still fixed inquiringly on those of the man beside her. “Let us be gay! Let us forget! Come, Frederic! Sit here at my feet. Lydia is not going home yet. Ranjab, the cigarettes!”
Frederic, white-faced and scowling, remained at the window, glaring out into the rain-swept night. A steady sheet of raindrops thrashed against the window-panes.
“Hear the wind!” cried Yvonne, after a single sharp glance at his tall, motionless figure. “One can almost imagine that ghosts from every graveyard in the world are whistling past our windows. Should we not rejoice? We have them safely locked outside. There are no ghosts in here to make us shiver—and—shake.”
The sentence that began so glibly trailed off in a slow crescendo, ending abruptly. Ranjab was holding the lighted taper for her cigarette. As she spoke her eyes were lifted to his dark, saturnine face. She was saying there were no ghosts when his eyes suddenly fastened on hers. In spite of herself her voice rose in response to the curious dread that chilled her heart as she looked into the shining mirrors above her. She shivered as if in the presence of death! For an incalculably brief period their gaze remained fixed and steady, each reading a mystery. Then the Hindu lowered his heavy lashes and moved away. The little by-scene did not go unnoticed by the others, although its meaning was lost.
“There's nothing to be afraid of, Yvonne,” said Brood, pressing the hand which trembled in his. “Your imagination carries you a long way. Are you really afraid of ghosts?”
She answered in a deep, solemn voice that carried conviction.
“I believe in ghosts. I believe the dead come back to us, not to flit about as we are told by superstition, but to lodge—actually to dwell—inside these warm, living bodies of ours. They come and go at will. Sometimes we feel that they are there, but—oh, who knows? Their souls may conquer ours and go on inhabiting———”
“Nonsense!” cried her husband. “Once dead, always dead, my dear.”
“Do you really believe that, James?” she demanded seriously. “Have you never felt that something that was not you was living, breathing, speaking in this earthly shell of yours? Something that was not you, I say. Something that———”
“Never!” he exclaimed quickly, but his eyes were full of the wonder that he felt.
“Frederic,” she called imperatively, “come away from that window!”
The young man joined the group. The sullen look in his face had given way to one of acute inquiry. The new note in her voice produced a strange effect upon him. It seemed like a call for help, a cry out of the darkness.
“It is raining pitchforks,” he said, as if to explain his failure to respond at the first call.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Lydia uncomfortably.
“You can't go out in the storm, my dear,” cried Yvonne, tightening her grip on the girl's arm. “Draw up a chair, Freddy. Let's be cosy.
“Really, Mrs Brood, I should go at once. Mother———”
“Your mother is in bed and asleep,” protested Yvonne.
“We should all be in bed,” said Frederic.
“A bed is a sepulchre. We bury half our lives in it, Frederic. We spend too much time in bed. Why live in our dreams when we should be enjoying to-day and not our yesterdays? Do you want to hear about the concert, James? It was wonderful. The———”
“If it was so wonderful, why did you leave before it was over?” demanded her husband, his lips straightening.
She looked at him curiously.
“How do you know that we left before it was over?”
“You have been at home since ten.”
They were all playing for time. They all realised that something sinister was attending their little conclave, unseen but vital. Each one knew that united they were safe, each against the other! Lydia was afraid because of Brood's revelations. Yvonne had sensed peril with the message delivered by Ranjab to Frederic. Frederic had come upstairs prepared for rebellion against the caustic remarks that were almost certain to come from his father. Brood was afraid of—himself! He was holding himself in check with the greatest difficulty. He knew that the smallest spark would create the explosion he dreaded and yet courted. Restraint lay heavily, yet shiftingly, upon all of them.
“Oh,” said Yvonne easily, “there were still two numbers to be played, and I loathe both of them. Frederic was ready to come away, too.”
“And Dr Hodder? Did he come away with you?” inquired Brood.
“No. He insisted on staying to the bitter end. We left him there.”
Brood laughed shortly. “I see.”
“He said he would come down with the Gunnings,” explained Yvonne, her eyes flickering. “Besides, I always feel as though I were riding in an ambulance when he is in the car. He dissected every bit of music they played to-night. Now, James dear, you know he is quite dreadful.” She said it pleadingly, poutingly.
“I offered to send the car back for him,” said Frederic, speaking for the first time.
Brood drew a long breath. His glance met Lydia's and recognised the mute appeal that lay in her eyes. He smiled faintly, and hope rose in her troubled breast.
“The Gunnings were there,” put in Yvonne, puffing more rapidly than usual at her cigarette. “They came to the box with Mr and Mrs Harbison during the intermission.”
“What spiteful things did Mrs Harbison say about me?” demanded Brood, affecting a certain lightness of manner. “A cigarette, Ranjab. She despises me, I'm sure. Didn't she ask why I was not there to look after my beautiful and much-coveted wife?”
“She said that you interested her more than any man she knew, and, of course, I considered that particularly spiteful. Her husband declared he would rather shoot with you than with any man in the world. He's very tiresome.”
“We've hunted a good bit together,” said Brood.
“Harbison says you are the most deadly shot he's ever seen,” said Frederic, relaxing slightly.
“What was it he said about your wonderful accuracy with a revolver? What was it, Frederic? Hitting a shilling at some dreadful distance—thirty yards, eh?”
“Thirty paces,” said Frederic.
“My father often spoke of your shooting with a revolver, Mr Brood,” said Lydia. “He said it was really marvellous.”
Yvonne laughed. “How interesting to have a husband who can even see as far as thirty paces. But revolver shooting is a doubtful accomplishment in these days of peace, isn't it? What is there to shoot at?”
“Mad dogs and—men,” said Brood. Lydia's look required an answer. “No, I've never shot a mad dog, Lydia.”
“Who was the young woman with the lisp, Freddy?” asked Yvonne abruptly.
“Miss Dangerfield. Isn't she amusing? I love that soft Virginia drawl of hers. She's pretty, too. Old Hodder was quite taken with her.”
A long, reverberating roll of thunder, ending in an ear-splitting crash that seemed no farther away than the window casement behind them, brought sharp exclamations of terror from the lips of the two women. The men, appalled, started to their feet.
“Good Lord, thatwasclose!” cried Frederic. “There was no sign of a storm when we came in—just a steady, gentle spring rain.”
“I am frightened,” shuddered Yvonne, wide-eyed with fear. “Do you think———”
“It struck near by, that's all,” said Brood. “Lightning bolts are deceptive. One may think they strike at one's very elbow, and yet the spot is really miles away. I hope your mother is not distressed, my dear,” turning to Lydia. “She is afraid of the lightning, I know.”
Lydia sprang to her feet. “I must go home at once, Mr Brood. She will be dreadfully frightened. I——”
There came another deafening crash. The glare filled the room with a brilliant, greenish hue. Ranjab was standing at the window, holding the curtains apart while he peered upward across the space that separated them from the apartment building beyond the court.
“Take me home, Frederic!” cried Lydia frantically. She ran toward the door.
“Let me telephone to your mother, Lyddy,” he cried, hurrying after her into the hall.
“No! no! no!” she gasped as she ran. “Don't come with me if you——”
“I will come!” he exclaimed, as they raced down the stairs. “Don't be frightened, darling. It's all right. Listen to me! Mrs Desmond is as safe as———”
“Oh, Freddy, Freddy!” she wailed, breaking under a strain that he was not by way of comprehending. “Oh, Freddy dear!” Her nerves gave way. She was sobbing convulsively when they came to the lower hall.
In great distress he clasped her in his arms, mumbling incoherent words of love, encouragement—even ridicule for the fear she betrayed. Far from his mind was the real cause of her unhappy plight.
He held her close to his breast, and there she sobbed and trembled as with a mighty, racking chill. Her fingers clutched his arm with the grip of one who clings to the edge of a precipice with death below. Her face was buried against his shoulder.
“There! There!” he murmured, appalled by this wild display of fear. “Don't worry, darling. Everything is all right. Oh, you dear, dear girlie! Please, please! My little Lyddy!”
“Take me home, Freddy—take me home,” she whispered brokenly. “I cannot stay here another second. Come, dearest—come home with me.”
Still they stood there in the dark hall, clasped in each other's arms—stood there for many minutes without realising the lapse of time, thinking not of Mrs Desmond nor the storm that raged outside, but of the storm they were weathering together with the lightning racing through their veins, thunder in their heart-beats.
A footstep in the hall. Frederic looked up, dazed, bewildered. Jones, the butler, was retreating through a door near by, having come upon them unexpectedly.
“I—I beg pardon, sir. I———”
“Oh, Jones! Listen! My raincoat—and father's, quick. And Miss Lydia's things. Yes, yes, it's all right, Jones. It's quite all right.” Frederic was calling out the sentences jerkily.
“Quite all right,” repeated Jones, his throat swelling, his eyes suddenly dim. “Quite, sir. Yes, yes!” He rushed into the closet at the end of the hall, more grievously upset than he ever had been in all his life before.
“You will come with me, Freddy?” she was whispering, clinging to him as one in panic.
“Yes, yes. Don't be frightened, Lyddy. I—I know everything is all right now. I'm sure of it.”
“Oh, I am sure, too, dear. I have always been sure,” she cried, and he understood, as she had understood.
Despite the protests of Jones they dashed out into the blighting thunderstorm. The rain beat down in torrents, the din was infernal. As the door closed behind them Lydia, in the ecstasy of freedom from restraint bitterly imposed, gave vent to a shrill cry of relief. Words, the meaning of which he could not grasp, babbled from her lips as they descended the steps. One sentence fell vaguely clear from the others, and it puzzled him. He was sure that she said:
“Oh, I am so glad, so happy we are out of that house—you and I together.”
Close together, holding tightly to each other, they breasted the swirling sheets of rain. The big umbrella was of little protection to them, although held manfully to break the force of the cold flood of waters. They bent their strong young bodies against the wind, and a sort of wild, impish hilarity took possession of them. It was freedom, after all! They were fighting a force in nature that they understood, and the sharp, staccato cries that came from their lips were born of an exultant glee which neither of them could have suppressed or controlled. Their hearts were as wild as the tempest about them.
They turned the corner and were flanked by the wind and rain. The long raincoats flattened their sleek, dripping folds tightly against their bodies. It was almost impossible to push forward into this mad deluge. The umbrella, caught by a gust, was turned inside out, and the full force of the storm struck upon their faces, almost taking the breath away. And they laughed as their arms tightened about each other. As one person they breasted the gale.
They were fairly blown through the doors of the apartment-house. Mrs Desmond threw open the door as their wet, soggy feet came sloshing down the hall. Frederic's arm was about Lydia as they approached, and both of their drenched faces were wreathed in smiles—gay, exalted smiles. The mother, white-faced and fearful, stared for a second at the amazing pair, and then held out her arms to them.
She was drenched in their embrace, but no one thought of the havoc that was being created in that swift, impulsive contact.
“It's a fine mess we've made of your rug, Mrs Desmond,” said Frederic ruefully a few minutes later.
“Goodness!” cried Lydia, aghast. Then they all realised.
“Take those horrid things off at once, both of you,” commanded Mrs Desmond. Her voice trembled. “And your shoes—and stockings. Dear, dear!”
“I must run back home!” exclaimed Frederic.
Lydia placed herself between him and the door.
“No! I want you to stay!” she cried.
“Stay?”
“You shall not go out in that dreadful storm again. I will not let you go, Frederic. Stay—stay here with me.”
He stared. “What a funny idea!”
“Wait until the rain is over,” added Mrs Desmond.
“No, no!” cried Lydia. “I mean for him to stay here the rest of the night. We can put you up, Freddy. I—I don't want you to go back there until—until to-morrow.”
A glad light broke in his face. “By Jove, I—do you know, I'd like to stay? I—I really would, Mrs Desmond. Can you find a place for me?” His voice was eager, his eyes sparkling.
“Yes,” said the mother quietly, almost serenely. “You shall have Lydia's bed, Frederic. She can come in with me. Yes, you must stay. Are you not our Frederic?”
“Thank you,” he stammered, and his eyes fell.
“I will telephone to Jones when the storm abates,” said Mrs Desmond. “Now get out of those coats, and—oh, dear, how wet you are! A hot drink for both.”
“Would you mind asking Jones to send over something for me to wear in the morning?” said Frederic, grinning as he stood forth in his evening clothes.
Ten minutes later, in a dressing-gown and bare feet, he sat with them before an open fire and sipped the toddy she had brewed.
“I say, this is great!”
Lydia was suddenly shy and embarrassed.
“Good night,” she whispered. Her fingers brushed his cheek lightly.
He drew her down to him and kissed her passionately.
“Good night, my Lyddy!” he said softly, his cheek flushing.
She went quickly from the room.
Later he stood in her sweet, dainty little bedroom and looked about him with a feeling of mingled awe and wonder. All of her intimate, exquisite belongings, the sanctified treasures of her most secret domain, were all about him.
He fingered the articles on her dressing-table; smelled of the perfume bottles and smiled as he recognised the sweet odours as being a part of her, and not a thing unto themselves; grinned delightedly at his own photograph in its silver frame that stood where she could see it the last thing at night and the first in the morning; caressed—aye, caressed—the little hand-mirror that had reflected her gay or troubled face so many times since the dear Christmas Day when he had given it to her with his love.
He stood beside her bed where she had stood, and the soft rug seemed to respond to the delightful tingling that ran through his bare feet. Her room! Her bed! Her domain!
Suddenly he dropped to his knees and buried his hot face in the cool white sheets and kissed them over and over again. Here was sanctuary! His eyes were wet with tears when he arose to his feet, and his arms went out to the closed door.
“My Lyddy!” he whispered chokingly.
Back there in the rose-hued light of James Brood's study Yvonne cringed and shook in the strong arms of her husband all through that savage storm. She was no longer the defiant, self-possessed creature he had come to know so well, but a shrinking, trembling child, stripped of all her bravado, all her arrogance, all her seeming guile. A pathetic whimper crooned from her lips in response to his gentle words of reassurance. She was afraid—desperately afraid—and she crept close to him in her fear.
And he? He was looking backward to another who had nestled close to him and whimpered as she was doing now—another who lived in terror when it stormed.