She could tell by his voice that he was not speaking the truth, and a moment later, as he leaned against the side of the boat, his head fell back, and his lips parted in a dead faint.
There was no scorn in the young girl's face for a man who could faint so easily, as it seemed; but the scared look came into her eyes again, and without hesitation, still steering with her left hand, she passed her right arm round his neck and supported him. The breeze was almost in her face now, for she was looking astern, and she knew by the way it fanned her whether she was keeping the boat fairly before it.
Lawrence did not revive immediately, and it was fortunate that there was so little wind, or Fanny might have got into trouble. She looked at him a moment longer and hesitated, for the position was a difficult one, as will be admitted. But she was equal to it and knew what to do. Letting his head fall back as it would, she withdrew her arm, let go the helm, and hauled in the sheet as the boat's head came up. As the boom came over towards Lawrence's head, she caught it and lifted it over him, hauled in the slack and made the sheet fast, springing forward instantly to let go the halliards. The gaff came rattling down, and she gathered in the bellying sail hastily and took a turn round everything with the end of the throat halliard, which chanced to be long enough—the gaskets were out of her reach, in the bottom of the boat.
There was little or no sea on, as the tide was near the turning, and the cat-boat was rocking softly to the little waves when Fanny came aft again. Lawrence's head was still hanging back, his lips were parted, and his eyes were half open, showing the whites in a rather ghastly way. With strong arms the young girl half lifted him, and let him gently down upon the cushions in the stern-sheets. Then she leaned over the side and wetted her handkerchief and laid it upon his bruised forehead. The cold water and the change of position brought him to himself.
He opened his eyes and looked up into her face as she bent over him. Then, all at once, he seemed to realize what had happened, and with an exclamation he tried to sit up. But she would not let him.
"Lie still a minute longer!" she said authoritatively. "You'll be all right in a little while."
"But it isn't anything, I assure you," he protested, looking about him in a dazed way. "Please let me sit up! I won't make a fool of myself again—it's only my heart, you know. It stops sometimes—it wasn't the knock."
"Your heart?" repeated Fanny, with greater anxiety than Lawrence might have expected. "You haven't got heart disease, have you?"
"Oh no—not so bad as that. It's all right now. It will begin to beat very hard presently—there—I can feel it—and then it will go on regularly again. It isn't anything. I fancy I smoke too much—or it's coffee—or something. Please don't look as though you thought it were anything serious, Miss Trehearne. I assure you, it's nothing. Lots of people have it."
"It is serious. Anything that has to do with the heart is serious."
Lawrence smiled faintly.
"Is that a joke?" he asked. "If it is, please let me sit up."
"No—that isn't a reason," answered Fanny, laughing a little, though her eyes were still grave. "You must lie still a little longer. You might faint again, you know. It must be dangerous to have one's heart behaving so strangely."
"Oh—I don't believe so."
"You don't believe so? You mean that it's possible, but that you hope it won't stop? Is that it?"
"Oh—well—perhaps. But I don't think there's any real danger. Besides—if it did, it's easy, you know."
"What's easy?"
"It's an easy death—over at once, in a flash. No lingering and last words and all that." He laughed.
Fanny Trehearne's sunburned cheeks grew pale under their tan, and her cool grey eyes turned slowly away from his face, and rested on the blue water.
"Please don't talk about such things!" she said in a tone that seemed hard to Lawrence.
"Are you afraid of death?" he asked, still smiling.
"I?" She turned upon him indignantly. "No—I don't believe that I'm much afraid of anything—for myself."
"You turned pale," observed the young man, raising himself on his elbow as he lay on the cushions, and looking at her. Her colour came back more quickly than it had gone.
"Did I?" she asked indifferently enough. "It's probably the sun. It's hot, lying here and drifting."
"No. It wasn't the sun," said Lawrence, with conviction. "You were thinking that somebody you are fond of might die suddenly. We were talking about death."
"What difference does it make whom I was thinking of?" She spoke impatiently now, still watching the water.
"It makes all the difference there is, that's all," answered Lawrence. "Won't you tell me?"
"No. Certainly not! Why should I? Look here—if you're well enough to talk, you're well enough to help me to get the sail up again."
"Of course I am—but—" Lawrence showed no inclination to move.
"But what? You're too lazy, I suppose." Fanny laughed. "Let me see your forehead—take your cap off," she added with a change of tone.
Lawrence thrust the cap back, which did not help matters much, as his hair grew low and partially hid the bruise. The skin was not broken, but it was almost purple, and a large swelling had already appeared.
"It's too bad!" exclaimed Fanny, looking at it, as he bent down his head, and softly touching it with her ungloved hand. "Tell me—do you feel very weak and dizzy still? I was only laughing when I spoke of your helping me with the sail."
"Oh no!" answered Lawrence, cheerfully. "It aches a little, of course, but it will soon go off."
"And your heart?" asked Fanny, anxiously. "Is it all right now? You don't think you'll faint again, do you?"
"Not a bit."
"I'm not sure. You're very pale."
"I'm always pale, you know. It's my nature. It doesn't mean anything. Some people are naturally pale."
"But you're not. You're dark, or brown, and not red, but you're not usually pale. I wish I had some whiskey, or something, to give you."
She looked round the boat rather helplessly as though expecting to discover a remedy for his weakness.
"Please don't make so much of it," said Lawrence, in a tone which showed that he was almost annoyed by her persistence. "I assure you that I won't have such bad taste as to die on your hands before we get to land!"
Fanny rose to her feet and turned away from him with an impatient exclamation.
"Just keep the helm amidships while I get the sail up," she said, without looking at him, and stepping upon the seat which ran along the side, she was on the little deck in a moment, with both halliards in her hands.
Lawrence sprang forward to help her, forgetting what she had just told him to do.
"Do as I told you!" she exclaimed quickly and impatiently. "Do you know what the tiller is? Well, keep it right in the middle till I tell you to do something else."
"Don't be fierce about it," laughed Lawrence, obeying her.
But when she was not looking, he pressed one hand to his forehead with all his might, as though to drive out the pain, which increased with every minute.
Meanwhile, Fanny laid her weight to the halliards, and the sail went flapping up, throat and peak. The girl was very strong, and had been taught to handle a catboat when she had been a mere child, so that there was nothing extraordinary in her accomplishing unaided a little feat which would have puzzled many a smart young gentleman who fancies himself half a sailor.
It chanced that on that evening Roger Brinsley was to dine with the Miss Miners. He was often asked, and he accepted as often as he could. As a matter of fact, he was not so much sought after elsewhere, as he was willing to let the four ladies believe, for there were people in Bar Harbour who shared Lawrence's distrust of him, while admitting that, so far as they could tell, it was quite unfounded. There was nothing against him. The men said that he played a good deal at the club, and remarked that he was a good type of the professional gambler, but no one ever said that he won too much. On the contrary, it was believed that he had lost altogether rather heavily during the six weeks since he had first appeared. He paid cheerfully, however, and was thought to be rich. Nevertheless, the men whose opinion was worth having did not like him. They wondered why the Miss Miners had him so often to the house, and whether there were not some danger that Fanny Trehearne might take a fancy to him.
It was very late when Fanny and Lawrence got home, for the catboat had been carried far up Frenchman's Bay during the time after the little accident, and it had been necessary to beat to windward for two hours against the rising tide in order to fetch the channel between Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine. The consequence was that the pair had scarcely time to dress for dinner after they reached the house.
Lawrence felt ill and tired, and was conscious that the swelling on his forehead was not beautiful to see. He was still dazed, and by no means himself, when he looked into the glass and knotted his tie. But though he might well have given an excuse and stayed in his room instead of going down to dinner, he refused to consider the possibility of such a thing even for a moment. He felt something just then which more than compensated him for his bruises and his wretched sensation of weakness.
The conversation, after the boat had got under way again, had languished, and had been so constantly interrupted by the often repeated operation of going about, that Lawrence had not succeeded in bringing it back to the point at which Fanny had broken it off when she had gone forward to hoist the sail. But he had more than half guessed what might have followed, and the reasonable belief that he might be right had changed the face of his world. He believed that Fanny had turned pale at the idea that his life was in danger.
One smiles at the simplicity of the thought, in black and white, by itself, just itself, and nothing more. Yet it was a great matter to Louis Lawrence, and as he looked at his bruised face in the glass he felt that he was too happy to shut himself up in his room for the evening, out of sight of the cool grey eyes he loved.
He had assuredly not meant to frighten Fanny when he had spoken, and he had been very far from inventing an imaginary ailment with which to excite her sympathy. The whole thing had come up unexpectedly as the result of the accident. Hence its value.
As often happens, the two people in the house who had been most hurried in dressing were the first down, and as Lawrence entered the library he heard Fanny's footstep behind him. He bowed as they came forward together to the empty fireplace. She looked at him critically before she spoke.
"You're badly knocked about. How do you feel?" There was a man-like directness in her way of asking questions, which was softened by the beauty of her voice.
"I feel—as I never felt before," answered Lawrence, conscious that his eyes grew dark as they met hers. "You told me something to-day—though you did not say it."
Fanny did not avoid his gaze.
"Did I?" she asked very gravely.
"Yes. Plainly."
"I'm very sorry," she answered, with a little sigh, and turning from him at last.
"Are you taking it back?" Louis's voice trembled as he asked the question.
"Hush!"
Just then the voices of the three Miss Miners were heard in the hall, and at the same instant the distant tinkle of the front-door bell announced the arrival of Roger Brinsley.
The conversation turned upon Lawrence's accident, from the first, as was natural, considering his appearance. He dwelt laughingly on his utter helplessness in a boat, while Fanny was inclined to consider the whole affair as rather serious. For some reason or other Brinsley was displeased at it, and ventured to say a disagreeable thing. He had lost at cards in the afternoon and was in bad humour. He spoke to Fanny with affected apprehension.
"You really ought to take somebody with you who knows enough to lend a hand at a pinch, Miss Trehearne," he said. "Suppose that you got into a squall and had to take a reef—you'd be in a bad way, you know."
"If I couldn't manage a catboat alone, I'd walk," answered Fanny, with contempt.
"Yes—no doubt. But if a squall really came up, what would you do? Mr. Lawrence confesses that he couldn't help you."
"Are you chaffing, Mr. Brinsley?" asked Fanny, severely. "Or do you think I really shouldn't know what to do?"
"I doubt whether you would."
"Oh—I'd let go the halliards and lash the helm amidships, and take my reef with the sail down—'hoist 'em up and off again,' after that, as the fishermen say."
"I think you could stand an examination," said Brinsley.
"I daresay. Could you? If you were going about off a lee shore in a storm and missed stays, could you club-haul your ship, Mr. Brinsley?"
The three Miss Miners stared at the two in surprise and wonder, not understanding a word of what they were saying. It was apparent to Lawrence, however, that Fanny was bent on putting Brinsley in the position of confessing his ignorance at last; but where the young girl had learned even the language of seamanship, which she used with such apparent precision, was more than Lawrence could guess. Brinsley did not answer at once, and Fanny pressed him.
"Do you even know what club-hauling means?" she asked, mercilessly.
"Well—no—really, I think the term must be obsolete."
"Not at sea," retorted Fanny.
This was crushing, and Brinsley, who was really a very good hand at ordinary sailing, grew angry.
"Of course you've had some experience in catboats," Fanny continued. "That isn't serious sailing, you know. It's about equivalent, in horsemanship, to riding a donkey—a degree less dignified than walking, and a little less trouble."
"I won't say anything about myself, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, "but you might treat the catboat a little less roughly. I didn't know you'd ever sailed anything else."
Here the Miss Miners interposed, one after the other, protesting that it was not fair to use up the opportunities of conversation in such nautical jargon.
"I only wished to prove to Mr. Brinsley that I'm to be trusted at sea," Fanny answered.
"My dear child," said Miss Cordelia, "Mr. Brinsley knows that, and he must be a good judge, having been in the navy."
"Oh, I didn't know you'd been in the navy, Mr. Brinsley," said the pitiless young girl, fixing her eyes on his with an expression which he, perhaps, understood, though no one else noticed it. "The English navy, of course?"
"The English navy," repeated Mr. Brinsley, sharply.
"Oh, well—that accounts for your not knowing how to club-haul a ship. Your own people are always saying that your service is going to the dogs."
Even Lawrence was surprised, and Brinsley looked angrily across the table at his tormentor, but found nothing to say on the spur of the moment.
"However," Fanny continued with some condescension, "I'm rather glad to know you're a navy man. I'll get you to come out with me some day and verify some of the bearings on our local chart. I believe there are one or two mistakes. We'll take the sextant and my chronometer with us, and the tables, and take the sun—each of us, you know, and work it out separately, and see how near we get. That will be great fun. You must all come and see Mr. Brinsley and me take the sun," she added, looking round at the others. "Let's go to-morrow. We'll take our luncheon with us and picnic on board. Can you come to-morrow, Mr. Brinsley? We must start at eleven so as to get far enough out to have a horizon by noon. I hope you're not engaged? Are you?"
"I'm sorry to say I am," answered the unfortunate man. "I'm going to ride with some people just at that hour."
"How unlucky!" exclaimed Fanny, who had expected the refusal. "I'll take Mr. Lawrence, anyhow, and give him a lesson in navigation."
"I've had one to-day," said Lawrence, affecting to laugh, for it was his instinct to try and turn off any conversation from a disagreeable subject.
"You'll be all the better for another to-morrow," answered Fanny.
As she spoke to the artist, her tone changed so perceptibly that even the Miss Miners noticed it. Brinsley took the first opportunity of talking to Miss Cordelia, of whose admiration he was sure, and the rest of the dinner passed off in peace, Brinsley avoiding a renewal of hostilities with something almost like fear, for he felt that the extraordinary young girl who knew so much about navigation was watching for another opportunity of humiliating him, and would not be merciful in using it.
The change in her manner to him had been very sudden, as though she had on that particular day made up her mind about something concerning him. Hitherto she had treated him almost cordially, certainly with every appearance of liking him. He had even of late begun to fancy that her colour heightened when he entered the room,—a phenomenon which, if real, was attributable rather to another cause, and connected with Lawrence's presence in the house.
After dinner the whole party went out upon the verandah, a favourite manoeuvre of Miss Cordelia's, whereby the society of Mr. Brinsley was not wasted upon smoke and men's talk in the dining-room. This evening, however, instead of sitting down at once in her usual place, Cordelia slipped her arm through Fanny's, and led her off to the other side and down the steps into the garden.
"The moonlight is so lovely," said Miss Cordelia, "and I want to talk to you. Let us walk a little—do you mind?"
The two went along the path in silence, in and out among the trees. The moon was full. From the sea came up the sound of the tide, washing the smooth rocks at high water. The breeze had died away at sunset and the deep sky was cloudless. Here and there the greater stars twinkled softly, but the little ones were all lost in the moonlight, like diamonds in a pure fountain. Everything was asleep except the watchful, wakeful sea. The two women stood still and looked across the lawn. At last Miss Miner spoke.
"Why were you so unkind to Mr. Brinsley to-night?" she asked in a low voice.
Fanny glanced at her before she answered. The eldest Miss Miner's face had once been almost beautiful. In the moonlight, the delicate, clearly chiselled features were lovely still, but a little ghostly, and the young girl saw that the fixed smile had disappeared for once, leaving a look of pain in its place.
"I didn't mean to be unkind," Fanny began. "That is," she added quickly, correcting herself, "I'm not quite sure of what I meant. I think I did mean to hurt him. He's so strong, and he's always showing that he despises Mr. Lawrence, because he isn't an athlete. As though a man must be a prize-fighter to be nice!"
"Well—but—Mr. Lawrence doesn't mind. You see how he takes it all. Why should you fight battles for him?"
"Perhaps I shouldn't. But—why should you take up the cudgels for Mr. Brinsley? He's quite able to take care of himself, if he will only tell the truth."
"If!" exclaimed Miss Cordelia, in ready resentment. "He's the most truthful man alive."
"Oh! And he told you he had been in the English navy."
"What has that to do with it? Of course he has, if he says so."
"He's unwise to say so, because he hasn't," answered Fanny, in her usual direct way.
"How in the world can you say that a man like Mr. Brinsley—an honourable man, I'm sure—is telling a deliberate falsehood? I'm surprised at you, Fanny—indeed I am! It isn't like you."
"Did you ever know me to tell you anything that wasn't exactly true?" asked the young girl, looking down into her elderly cousin's sweet, sad face, for she was much the taller.
"No—of course not—but—"
"Well, Cousin Cordelia, I tell you that your Mr. Brinsley has never been in the English navy. I don't say that I think so. I say that I know it. Will you believe me, or him?'
"Oh, Fanny!" Miss Cordelia raised her eyes with a frightened glance.
"Not that it matters," added Fanny, looking away across the moonlit lawn again. "Who cares? Only, it's one of those lies that go against a man," she continued after a short pause. "A man may pretend that he has shot ten million grisly bears in his back yard, or hooked a salmon that weighed a hundred-weight—people will laugh and say that he's a story-teller. It's all right, you know—and nobody minds. But when a man says he's been in the army or the navy, and hasn't—people call him a liar and cut him. I don't know why it's so, I'm sure, but it is—and we all know it."
"Yes," answered Cordelia, almost tremulously; "but you haven't proved that Mr. Brinsley isn't telling the truth—"
"Oh yes, I have! There never was a deep-sea sailor yet who had never heard of club-hauling a ship to save her. I know about those things. I always make navy officers talk to me about those things whenever I get a chance. Besides, I can prove it to you. Ask the first captain of a fishing-schooner you meet down at the landing what it means. But don't tell me I don't know—it's too absurd."
Miss Cordelia looked down. Her hand still rested on Fanny's arm, and it trembled now so that the young girl felt it.
"What does it mean, then?" asked Cordelia, faintly.
"Oh, it's a long operation to tell about. It's when you've got a lee-shore in a gale, and you want to go about and can't, because you miss stays every time, and you let go an anchor, and the ship swings to it, and just as she begins to get way on, you slip your chain, and she pays off on the other tack. Of course you lose your anchor."
"Oh—you lose the anchor? To save the ship? I see."
"Exactly."
"You lose the anchor to save the ship," repeated Cordelia, softly, as though she were trying to remember the words for future use. "Shall we go back?" she suggested, rather abruptly.
"I wish you'd answer me one question first," said Fanny.
"Yes. What is it?"
"Why are you so awfully anxious to stand up for Mr. Brinsley? You're not in love with him, are you?"
Cordelia started very perceptibly, and turned her face away. Then, all at once, she laughed a little hysterically.
"In love? At my age?"
And she laughed again, and laughed, strange to say, till she cried, clinging all the time to the young girl's strong arm. Fanny did not ask any more questions as they walked slowly back to the house.
"Come with me into the village, and help me to do errands," said Fanny on the following morning, just as Lawrence was feeling for his pipe in his pocket after breakfast. "You can smoke till we get there. It wouldn't hurt you to smoke less, anyway."
They went down through the garden, fresh and dewy still from the short, cool night, towards the sea. The path to the village lies along a low sea-wall, just high enough and strong enough to keep the tide from the lawns. But the tide was beginning to run out at that hour, and was singing and rocking itself away from the shore, leaving the big loose stones and the chocolate-coloured rocks all wet and shining in the morning sun. The breeze was springing up in the offing and would reach the land before long, kissing each island as it passed softly by, and gently breaking with dark blue the smoothly undulating water.
The sun was almost behind the pair as they walked along the sands, and shone full upon the harbour as it came into view, lighting up the deep green of the islands between which passes the channel, and bringing up the warm brown of the soil through thick weaving spruces. The graceful yachts caught the sunshine, too, their hulls gleaming darkly, or dazzlingly white, their slender masts pencilled in light, against the trees, and standing out like threaded needles when they showed against the pale, clear sky. In the bright northern air, the artist would have complained that there was no atmosphere—no 'depth,' nor 'distance,' but only the distinct farness of the objects a long way off—nothing at all like 'atmospheric perspective.'
"Isn't it a glorious day!" exclaimed Fanny, looking seaward at a white-sailed fishing-schooner, which scarcely moved in the morning air.
"It's a little bit too swept and garnished," answered Lawrence. "That is—for a picture, you know. It's better to feel than to look at, if you understand what I mean. It feels so northern, that when you look at it, it seems bare and unfinished without a little snow."
"But you like it, don't you?" asked the young girl, in prompt protest.
"Of course I do. What a question! I thought I'd been showing how much I liked it, ever since I got here."
"I'm not sure that you show what you like and don't like," said Fanny, in a tone of reflexion. "Perhaps it's better not to."
"You don't, at all events. At least—aren't you rather an inscrutable person? Of course I don't know," he added rather foolishly, pulling his woollen cap over his eyes and glancing at her sideways.
"Inscrutable! What a big word! 'The inscrutable ways of Providence'—that's what they always say, don't they? Still—if you mean that I don't 'tell,' you're quite right. I don't—when I can keep my countenance. Do you? It's always far better not to tell. Besides, if you commit yourself to an opinion, you're committing yourself to gaol."
"What a way of putting it! But it's really true. I should so much like to ask you a question about one of your opinions."
"Why don't you?" asked Fanny, turning her eyes to his.
"Oh—lots of reasons: I'm afraid, in the first place; and then, I'm not sure you have one, and then—"
"Say it all—I hate people who hesitate!"
"Well—no. There's a great deal more to say than I want to say. Let's talk about the landscape."
"No. I want to know what the question is which you wished you might ask," insisted Fanny.
"It's about Mr. Brinsley," said Lawrence, plunging.
"Well, what about him?" Fanny's tone changed perceptibly, and her expression grew cold and forbidding.
"Nothing particular—unless it's impertinent—so I won't ask it."
"You won't?" asked Fanny, slackening her pace and looking hard at him. "Not if I ask you to?"
"No," answered Lawrence. "I'd oblige you by asking a different question, but not that one. You wouldn't know the difference."
"That's ingenuous, at all events." She looked away again and laughed.
"I never fight when I can help it, and you looked dangerous just now. You always are, in one way or another."
"What do you mean?"
"Only that when you don't happen to be frightening me out of my wits, you are charming me into a perfect idiot."
"Something between an express train and the Lorelei," laughed Fanny.
But the quick, girlish blood had sprung to her sunny cheeks and lingered a moment, as though it loved the light. They were now in the village—in the broad street where the shops are. At that hour there were many people moving about on foot and in every sort of vehicle, short of broughams and landaus. There was the smart couple in a high buckboard, just out for a morning drive; there was the elderly farmer with his buggy or his hooded cart—his wife seated beside him, with her queer, sad, winter-blighted face, and her decent, but dusty black frock;—there was the young farmer 'sport' driving his favourite trotting horse in a sulky. And of pedestrians there was no end. A smart party bent on a day's excursion by sea came down the board walk, brilliant in perfectly new blue and white serge, with bits of splendid orange and red here and there, fresh faces, light hearts, great appetites, and the most trifling of cares—the care for trifles themselves. Fanny nodded and smiled, and was smiled at, while Lawrence attempted to lift his soft woollen cap from his head with some sort of grace—a thing impossible, as men who wear soft woollen caps well know. But the air seemed lighter and brighter for so much youth laughing in it.
Fanny dived into one shop after another, Lawrence following her, rather awkwardly, as a man always does under the circumstances, until he is old enough to find out that there is a time for watching as well as a time for talking, and that more may be learned of a woman's character from the way she treats shopkeepers than is generally supposed. Fanny showed surprising alternations of firmness and condescension, for she had the gift of managing people and of getting what she wanted, which is a rare gift and one not to be despised. She asked very kindly after the fishmonger's baby, but she did not hesitate to tell the grocer the hardest of truths about the butter.
"I always do my own marketing," she said to Lawrence, in answer to his look of surprise. "It amuses me, and I get much better things. My poor dear cousins don't understand marketing a bit—though they ought to. That's the reason why they never get on, somehow. I believe marketing is the best school in the world for learning what's worth having and what isn't. Don't you?"
"I never had a chance to learn," laughed Lawrence. "I wish you'd teach me how to get on, as you call it."
"Oh—it's very easy! You only need know exactly what you want, and then try to get it as hard as you can. Most people don't know, and don't try."
"For that matter I know perfectly well what I want."
"Then why don't you try and get it?" asked Fanny, pausing at the door of another shop as though interested in his answer.
"I'm not sure that it's in the market," answered the young man, his eyes in hers.
"Have you enquired?" Fanny's mouth twitched with the coming smile.
"No—not exactly. I'm trying to find out by inspection."
"If you don't think it's likely to be too dear, you'd better ask—whatever it is."
"Money couldn't buy it. Besides, I've got none," added Lawrence.
"You might get it on credit," said Fanny. "But I think it's very doubtful."
Thereupon she entered the shop, and Lawrence followed her, meditating deeply upon his chances, and asking himself whether he should run the great risk at once, or wait and watch Brinsley. To tell the truth, he thought his own chances very small; for he under-estimated all his advantages by looking at them in the light of his present poverty, not seeing that in so doing he might be underestimating Fanny Trehearne as well. A somewhat excessive caution, which sometimes goes with timidity, though not at all of the sort which produces cowardice, is often the result of an education which has not brought a man closely into competition with other men. No one in common sense, save the Miss Miners and Lawrence himself, could have imagined that Brinsley had a chance against him. For anything that people knew, Brinsley might turn out to be an adventurer of the worst kind, whereas Lawrence was of good birth, a man of whom many knew who he was, and whence he came, and that he had as good a right to ask for Fanny's hand as any man. He was poor just now, but no one believed that his rich uncle, a childless widower of fifty-five, would marry again, and Lawrence was sure to have money in the end, though he might wait thirty years for it.
As for Brinsley, Fanny Trehearne either could not or would not pretend that she liked him, even in the most moderate degree of distant liking, after she had satisfied herself that he was not a truthful person in those matters in which truth decides the right of a man to be considered honourable. Being, on the whole, more careful than most people about the accuracy of what she said, she was less inclined to make allowances for others than a great many of her contemporaries. Besides, Brinsley had not only told a lie, which was mean in itself, but he had allowed himself to be found out, which Fanny considered contemptible.
Up to this time she had seemed to think him very pleasant company and not a bad addition to the society of the place.
"He's so good-looking!" she had often said to the approving Miss Miners. "And he has good manners, and knows how to come into a room, and how to sit down and get up—and do lots of things," she added vaguely.
In this opinion her three old-maid cousins fully concurred, and they were quite ready to say as much in his favour as Fanny could have heard without laughing. They were therefore greatly distressed when she changed her mind.
"He's handsome," Fanny now admitted. "But he's a little too showy. I've seen men like him at races, but they were not the men who were introduced to me. I don't think they knew anybody I knew—that sort of man, don't you know? And his English accent isn't quite English, and I don't like his little flat whiskers, and his hands irritate me. Besides, he said he had been in the navy, and now he admits that he never was. That's enough."
"My dear Fanny," Cordelia answered, on such occasions, "there was a misunderstanding about that, you know. He was in the navy, since he was an officer of Marines, but of course he wasn't expected to know—"
"The Marines!" exclaimed Fanny, contemptuously. "It's only a way of getting out of it, I'm sure!"
Thereupon the three Miss Miners told her that she was very unjust and prejudiced, as they retired together to praise Mr. Brinsley, out of hearing of their young cousin's tart comment. Miss Cordelia had made it all right by giving the man an opportunity of justifying himself after he had privately explained to her that the Marines were an integral part of the navy, but that they were not called upon to know anything about navigation,—a fact which must account for his ignorance.
He had very firm friends, to say the least of it, in the three spinsters, who might have been said to worship the ground on which he walked, and who thought it a sin and a shame that Fanny should treat him as she did. As for young Lawrence, he looked on, with his observant artist's eyes, and never mentioned Brinsley, except to Fanny herself. For he was not at all lacking in tact, however deficient he might be in the manly accomplishments.
"Do you know," Fanny began, one day when they were walking in the woods, "I don't half mind you're being such a bad hand at things. It's funny. I thought I should, at first—but I don't."
"I'm awfully glad," answered Lawrence, not finding anything else to say to express his gratitude.
"Oh, you may well be!" laughed Fanny. "I don't forgive everybody for being a duffer. And that's what you are, you know. You don't mind my saying so?"
"Oh no, not at all." The tone in which he spoke did not express much conviction, however.
"I believe you do," said Fanny, thoughtfully.
They were following a narrow path which led upwards along the bank of a brook under overarching trees. Here and there the bank had fallen away, and the woodmen had laid down 'slabs' of the rippings first taken off by the saw-mill in squaring timber. It was damp under foot, for it had lately rained, and the wet, chocolate-coloured dead leaves of the previous year filled the chinks between the bits of wood, and sometimes lay all over them, a slippery mass. It was still and hot and damp all through the thick growth on the midsummer's afternoon. The whispered mystery of countless living things filled the quiet air with a vibration more felt than heard, which overcame the silence, but did not break the stillness.
The path was very narrow, and Fanny had to walk before her companion. Their voices seemed to echo back to them from very near, as they talked, for amongst the trees the rich undergrowth grew man-high. On their right, below them, the brook laughed softly to itself as a faun might laugh, drowsily, half asleep in a hollow of the deep woods.
And then, through the warm-breathing secret places, where all that was living was growing fiercely in the sudden summer, stole the heart-thrilling fragrance of all that lived, than which nothing more surely stirs young blood in the glory of the year.
For some minutes the pair walked on in silence, Fanny leading. The young man watched the strong, lithe figure of the girl as she moved swiftly and sure-footed before him. Suddenly she stopped, without turning round, and she seemed to be listening. A low ray of sunlight ran quivering through the trees and played with a crisp ringlet of her hair, too full of life and strength to be smoothed to dull order with the rest.
"What is it?" asked Lawrence, in a low voice, watching her.
"I thought I heard some one in the woods," she answered quickly, and then listened again.
Not a sound broke the dream-like stillness.
"I'm sure I heard something," said Fanny. Then she laughed a little. "Besides," she added, "it's very likely. It's awfully hot. Here's a good place to sit down."
It was not a particularly good place, being damp and sloping, and Lawrence planted his heels firmly amongst the wet, dead leaves to keep himself from slipping down into the path as he sat beside her.
"There's always something going on in the woods," she said softly and dreamily. "The trees talk to each other all day long, and the squirrels sit and crack nuts while they listen to the conversation. I like the woods. Somehow one never feels alone when one gets where things grow—does one?"
"I don't mind being alone when I can't be—I mean—" Lawrence did not finish his sentence, but bent down and picked up a twig from the ground. "Isn't it funny!" he exclaimed, twisting it in his hands. "All the bark's loose, and turns round."
"Of course—it's an old twig, and it's wet. When don't you mind being alone? You were saying something—'when you couldn't be with'—something, or somebody."
"Oh—you know! What's the use of my saying it?" Lawrence kept his eye on the twig.
"I don't know, and if I want you to say anything, that's the use," answered Fanny, whose prose style, so to say, was direct if it was anything.
"Yes—but you see—I didn't mean anything in particular." He broke the twig in two and tossed it over the path into the brook below.
Fanny changed her position a little, leaning forward and clasping her gloved hands round her knees.
"You're very nice, you know," she said meditatively. "I like you."
"Because I don't answer your questions?" asked Lawrence, looking at her face, which was half turned from him.
"Yes. That's one of the reasons."
"It's a very funny one. I don't see much reason in it, I confess."
"Don't you? Don't you know that a woman sometimes likes a man for what he doesn't say?"
"I never thought of it in that way. I daresay you're right. You ought to know much better than I do. Especially if you really like me, as you say you do."
"Oh—I'm honest. I never said I'd been in the navy!" Fanny laughed. "Besides, if I didn't like you, why should I say so? Just to say something civil? The way Mr. Brinsley does?"
"Brinsley's a horror! Don't talk about him—especially here."
"I don't mean to. I hate him. But if we were going to talk about him, this would be a good place—one's sure that he's not just round the corner of the verandah making one of my three cousins miserable."
"How do you mean?"
"Why—they all love him. Can't you see it? I don't mean figuratively. Not a bit. They're in love with him, poor dears!"
"Nonsense! not really?" Lawrence laughed incredulously.
"Yes—really. It's a rather dismal sort of love—they've kept their hearts in pickle for such an age, you know—old pickles aren't good, either. I've no patience with old maids who fall in love and make fools of themselves!"
"Perhaps they can't help it," suggested the young man. "Nobody can help falling in love, you know."
"No," answered Fanny, rather doubtfully. "Perhaps not. I don't know. It depends."
"People don't generally try to keep themselves from falling in love," remarked Lawrence, with the air of a philosopher. "It's more apt to be the other way. They are generally trying to make some one else fall in love with them. That's the hard thing."
"Is it?" Fanny smiled. "Perhaps it is," she added, after a pause. "I'd like to tell you something—"
She hesitated and stopped. Lawrence looked at her, but did not speak, expecting her to go on. The silence continued for some time. Once or twice Fanny turned and met his eyes, and her lips moved as though she were just going to say something. She seemed to be in doubt.
"I don't believe in friendship, and I don't believe in promises,—and I don't believe much in anything," she said at last, in magnificent generalization. "But I'd like to tell you, all the same. Do you mind?"
"I won't repeat it if you do," said Lawrence, simply.
"No—I don't believe you will. You see I haven't any friends, so I never tell things,—at least, not much. I don't believe much in telling, anyway. Do you?"
"Not if you mean to keep a secret."
"Oh—well—this isn't exactly a secret—only I don't want any one to know it. Yes, I know! You laugh because I'm going to tell you. But you're different, somehow—"
"Am I?"
"Oh yes,—you don't count!"
Lawrence's face fell a little at this last remark, and there was silence again for a few moments.
"I'm not sure that I'll tell you, after all," said Fanny, at last.
The quiet lids were half closed over the grey eyes, and she seemed to be thinking out something. Lawrence was unconsciously wondering why he did not think the white lashes ugly, especially when she had just told him that he did not 'count.'
"Are you sure you won't tell?" asked the young girl, after another long pause.
"If you don't want me to, of course I won't," answered Lawrence, mechanically.
"It's a sort of confession," said Fanny. "That's the reason why I don't like to tell you. It's cowardly to be afraid of confessing that one's been an idiot, so I am going to do it at once and get it over."
"It's a startling confession!" laughed Lawrence, softly. "I don't believe it. Is that all?"
"If you laugh at me, I won't tell you anything more. Then you'll be sorry."
"Shall I?"
"Yes."
"All right! I'm serious now," said Lawrence.
"Don't you want to smoke?" asked Fanny, suddenly. "I wish you would. I should be less—less nervous, you know."
"What a curious idea! But I'll smoke if you like."
He proceeded to fill and light a big brier-root pipe.
"I like the smell of a pipe," said Fanny, watching the operation. "I'm so tired of the everlasting cigarette."
"I'm ready," Lawrence said, puffing slowly into the still, hot air.
"Are you sure you won't laugh at me? Well, I'll tell you. I liked Mr. Brinsley awfully—at first."
Lawrence looked at her quickly and took his pipe from his mouth.
"Not really?" he exclaimed, only half-interrogatively, but with a change of colour. "But then—well—I don't suppose you mean anything particular by that," he added, to comfort himself. "You don't mean that you—" He stopped.
Fanny nodded slowly, and the blush that rose in her face reddened her sunny complexion.
"Yes. That's what I mean. I cared for him, you know,—that sort of thing."
"It hasn't taken you long to get over it, at all events," answered Lawrence, gravely, and wondering inwardly why she made the extraordinary confession, seeing that it hurt him and could do her no good.
"No—it hasn't taken long, has it? That's what frightens me. If I weren't frightened, I shouldn't talk to you about it."
"I don't understand—why are you frightened? Especially since you've got over it. I don't see—"
"I thought you might," said Fanny, enigmatically.
A long silence followed, this time. Lawrence crossed his hands on his knees as Fanny was doing, holding his pipe, which was going out. They both sat staring at the opposite bank of the brook.
The vital loveliness of the still woods was all around them, whispering in their young ears, breathing into their young nostrils the breath of nature's life, caressing them with bountiful warmth. They sat side by side, very near, staring at the opposite bank, and for a long time no words passed their lips. At last the young girl spoke in a low and almost monotonous tone.
"He has an influence over people who come near him," she said. "Besides, that kind of man appeals to me. It's natural, isn't it? I'm so fond of all sorts of things out-of-doors, that I can't help admiring a man who can do everything so well. And he's a splendid creature. You've never seen him ride. You don't know—it's wonderful! I wish you could see him on that thoroughbred Teddy Van De Water has brought up this summer—Teddy's a good rider, but he can't do anything with the mare. You ought to see Brinsley—Mr. Brinsley—you'd understand better."
"But I understand perfectly, as it is," said Lawrence, rather gloomily.
"Do you? I wonder whether you really do. Do you think there's any—any excuse for me?"
The words were spoken in a faltering shamefaced way very unlike Fanny's usual manner.
"As though you needed any excuse for taking a fancy to any one who pleases you!" answered Lawrence, rather coldly. "Aren't you perfectly free to like anybody who turns up?"
During the pause which followed, he slowly relighted his pipe, which had quite gone out by this time.
"I was afraid you wouldn't understand," said Fanny, in a disappointed tone.
"But I do—"
"No—not what I mean. I hate explaining things, but I shall have to."
Louis Lawrence wondered vaguely what there could be to explain, and, if there were anything, why she should be so anxious to explain to him in particular.
"It was in this way," said Fanny. "Mr. Brinsley brought a letter of introduction from Cousin Frank. You know who Frank is, don't you? He's the brother of the three Miss Miners."
"Of course," nodded Lawrence. "Everybody knows Frank Miner."
"And he knows everybody. But he didn't say much in his note, and Cordelia has written to him since, because she wants to know all about Mr. Brinsley, and it appears that Frank has only met him once or twice at a club, and doesn't know anything about him. However, it doesn't matter! The main point is that he called the day after we got here, and in twenty-four hours we were all in love with him."
"Please don't include yourself," said Lawrence, his delicate face betraying that he winced.
"I will include myself, because it's true," answered Fanny, very much in earnest. "I shouldn't put it just in that way about myself, perhaps,—but I took a fancy to him, and I took him to drive, and I found that he could drive quite as well as I, and we went out riding with a party, and he rides like an angel—he really does—it's divine. And then I tried him in the boat, and he was good at that. So I began to like him very much."
"They're all excellent reasons for liking a man," observed Lawrence, with a little contempt.
"Don't scoff at things you can't do yourself," said Fanny, severely. "It's not in good taste. Besides, I don't care. All women admire men who are stronger, and quicker, and better with their hands than other men. One always thinks they must be braver, too."
"Yes, that's true," assented Lawrence, seeking to retrieve himself by meekness.
"And they generally are. It takes courage to ride well, and it needs nerve to handle a boat in a squall. I don't mean to say that you can't be brave if you don't know how to do those things. That would be nonsense. You—for instance—you could learn. Only nobody has ever taught you anything, and you're getting old."
Lawrence laughed outright, and forgot his ill-humour in a moment.
"Oh—I don't mean really old," said Fanny, immediately. "I only mean that one ought to learn when one is a child, as I did. Then it's no trouble, you see—and one never forgets. Now, Mr. Brinsley began young—"
"Yes," interrupted the young man, "I should say so. I'm sorry I didn't."
"So am I. It would have been so nice to do things—"
She stopped abruptly, and pulled up a blade of rank grass, which she proceeded to twist thoughtfully round her finger.
"I shouldn't like you to think I was a flirt," she said, suddenly turning her grey eyes upon him.
He met her glance curiously, being considerably surprised by her remark.
"Because I sometimes think I am, myself," she added, still looking at him. "Do you think so?" she asked earnestly. "What is a flirt, anyway?"
"A woman who draws a man on for the pleasure of breaking his heart, I suppose," answered Lawrence, keeping his eyes fixed intently on hers.
"Then I'm only half a flirt," said Fanny, "because I only draw a man on, without meaning to break anybody's heart."
"Don't," said Lawrence. "It hurts, you know."
"I wonder—" The young girl laughed a little, and turned away from his eyes.
"What?"
"Whether it really hurts." She bit the end of the grass blade, and slowly tore it with her teeth, looking dreamily across the brook.
"Don't try it, at all events."
"Mr. Brinsley doesn't seem to mind."
"Brinsley isn't a human being," said Lawrence, savagely.
"What is he, then?"
"A fraud—of some sort. I don't care. I hate him!"
"You're hard on Mr. Brinsley," observed Fanny, slowly, and watching her companion sideways.
"Considering what you've been saying about him—"
"I said nothing about him except that I began by liking him awfully."
"Well—you left the rest to my imagination. I did as well as I could. If you didn't hate him yourself, you'd hardly have been telling me all this, would you?"
"Oh—I don't know. I might be going to ask your advice about—about him."
"Take him out in your boat and drown him," suggested Lawrence. "That's my advice about him."
"What has he done to you, Mr. Lawrence?" enquired Fanny, gravely. "Why do you hate him so?"
"Why? It's plain enough, it seems to me—plain as a—what do you call the thing?"
"Plain as a marlinespike, you mean. Only it isn't. I want to know two things. Do you think I'm a flirt? And why do you want me to murder poor, innocent Mr. Brinsley? Do you mind answering?"
Lawrence's dark eyes began to gleam angrily. He bit his pipe and pulled at it, though it had gone out; then he took it from his lips and answered deliberately.
"If you are a flirt, Miss Trehearne, I don't wish Brinsley any further damage. He'll do very well in your hands, I'm sure. I have no anxiety."
"I wouldn't hurt a fly," said Fanny. "If I liked the fly," she added.
"I believe the spider said something to the same effect, when he invited the fly into his parlour."
At this a dark flush rose in the girl's cheeks.
"You're rude, Mr. Lawrence," she said.
"I'm sorry, Miss Trehearne—but you're unkind, so you'll please to excuse me."
Instead of flushing, as she did, Lawrence turned slowly pale, as was his nature.
"Even if I were,—but I'm not,—that's no reason why you should be rude."
"I didn't mean to be rude," answered Lawrence. "I don't see what I said that was so very dreadful."
"It was much worse than anything I said," retorted Fanny, biting her blade of grass again. "Because I didn't say anything at all, you know. Oh, well—if you'll say you're sorry, we'll bury it."
"I'm sorry," said Lawrence, without the least show of contrition.
"I was going to tell you such lots of things about myself," said the young girl. "You've made me forget them all. What was I talking about when we began to fight? I began by saying that I liked you, and you've been horrid ever since. I won't say that again, at all events."
"Excuse me—you began by saying that you'd liked Brinsley—liked him awfully, you said. It must have been awful—anything connected with Brinsley is necessarily awful."
"There you go again. Don't bolt so—it makes bad running. I told you why I'd liked him so much at first, and you admitted that it was natural. Do you remember that? Well—that isn't all. After I liked him, I began to care for him. I told you that, too. Horrid of me, wasn't it?"
"Horrid!"
"I wish you wouldn't agree with me all the time!" exclaimed Fanny, impatiently. "You know I really did care—a little. And then one day in the catboat, he asked me—" She stopped and looked at Lawrence.
"To marry you? Why don't you say it? It wouldn't surprise me a bit."
"No," said Fanny, slowly, "he didn't ask me to marry him."
"In Heaven's name, what did he ask you?" enquired Lawrence, exasperated to impatience.
"Oh—I don't know. It was something about the channel between Bar and Sheep, I believe. Nothing very important, anyway. I'm not sure that I could remember, if I tried."
"Then—excuse me, but what's the point?"
"Oh—I know!" exclaimed Fanny, as though suddenly recollecting something. "Not that it matters much, but I like to be accurate. It was about the bell buoy off Sheep Porcupine. You know, I showed it to you the other day. Well—I told him how it had been carried away in a storm some time ago, and that this was a new one. And the next day I heard him telling Augusta all about it, as though he had known before, you see."
"Well—that wasn't exactly a crime," observed Lawrence, who could not understand at all. "You'd told him—"
"Yes, but he said he remembered the old one. That was impossible, as he hadn't known anything about it. It was a little slip, but it made me open my eyes and watch him. I used to think he was perfection until then."
"Oh, I see! That was when you first began to find out that he wasn't quite straight."
"Exactly. It made all the difference. I've caught him out more than once since then. The other night, it was too much for me, when he talked about the navy—so I promptly smashed him. He knows that I know, now."
"I should think so. All the same—I don't mean to be rude this time, Miss Trehearne—
"Be careful!"
"No—I'll risk it. Just now when you said he had 'asked you'—you stopped short. You knew I should believe that you had been going to say that he had asked you to marry him, didn't you?"
"Oh, I know! I couldn't help it—I believe I really am a flirt, after all."
"I shouldn't like to believe it," said Lawrence, gravely.
"Nor I—either. I only wanted to see how you'd look if you thought he'd offered himself just then."
"Just then! Do you mean to say that he has offered himself at any other time?"
"Now you're rude again—only, I forgive you, because you don't know that you are. It's rude to ask such questions—so I'll be polite and refuse to answer. Not that there's any good reason why he shouldn't have asked me to marry him, you know. The fact that you hate him isn't a reason."
"But you do, yourself—"
"Not at all. At least, I haven't said so. I wish you'd listen to me, Mr. Lawrence, instead of interrupting me with questions every other moment. How in the world am I to make a confession, if you won't let me say two words?"
"Are you going to make a confession?" asked Lawrence, incredulously. "It's all chaff, you know!"
Fanny turned her cool eyes upon him instantly.
"There's a lot besides chaff," she said, in a very different tone. "I can be in earnest, too—when I care."
She certainly emphasized the last three words in a way which might have meant much, accompanied as they were by her steady look. Lawrence felt himself growing a little pale again.
"Do you care?" he asked, and his voice shook perceptibly.
"For Mr. Brinsley?" enquired Fanny, instantly changing her tone again and beginning to laugh.
"No—for me."
"For you! Oh dear, what a question!" She laughed outright.
Lawrence leaned down and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the toe of his heavy walking-shoe without saying a word. Then he put the pipe into his pocket. She watched him.
"You've no right to be angry this time," she said. "But you are."
The young man faced her quietly and waited a moment before he spoke.
"You're playing with me," he said, calmly and without emphasis, as stating a fact.
"Of course I am!" laughed Fanny Trehearne. "What did you expect? But I'm sorry that you've found it out," she added, with appalling cynicism. "It won't be fun any more."
"Unless we both play," suggested Lawrence, who had either recovered his temper very quickly, or possessed a better control over it than Fanny had supposed.
"All right!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's play—let us play. That sounds solemn, somehow—I wonder why? Oh—of course—it's like 'Let us pray' in church."
Lawrence laughed drily.
"Let us pray beforehand, for the one who gets the worst of it," he said. "He or she will need it. But I shall win at the game, you know. That's a foregone conclusion."
Fanny was surprised and amused at the confidence he suddenly affected—very unlike his habitual modesty and self-effacement.
"You seem pretty sure of yourself," she answered. "What shall the forfeit be, as they say in the children's games?"
"To marry or not to marry, at the discretion of the winner. I think that's fair, don't you? I shouldn't like to propose anything serious—the head of Roger Brinsley in a charger, for instance."
Fanny laughed again.
"Yes, it's all very well!" she protested. "But of course the one who loses will be in earnest, and the one who wins will not."
"He may be, by that time," suggested Lawrence.
"Don't say 'he,' so confidently—I mean to win. Besides, are we starting fair? Of course I don't care an atom for you, but don't you care for me—just a little?"
"I!" exclaimed Lawrence. "What an idea!" He laughed quite as naturally as Fanny herself. "Do you think that a man in love would propose such a game as we are talking about?" he asked.
"I'm sure I don't know what to think," answered the young girl. "Perhaps I shall know in a day or two."
She looked down, quite grave again, and pulled a bit of fern from the bank, and crushed it in her hand, and then smelled it.
"Don't you like sweet fern?" she asked, holding it out to him. "I love it!"
"That's why you crush it, I suppose," said Lawrence.
"It doesn't smell sweet unless you do. Oh—I see! You were beginning to play the game. Very well. Why should we lose time about it? But I wish it were a little better defined. What is it we're going to do? Won't you explain? I'm so stupid about these things. Are we going to flirt for a bet?"
"What a speech!"
"Because it's a plain one? Is that why you object to it? After all, that's what we said."
"We only said we'd play," answered Lawrence. "Whichever ends by caring must agree to marry the winner, if required. But I'm afraid the time is too short," he added, more gravely. "I've only a week more."
"Only a week!" exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of disappointment. "Why, I thought there was ever so much more. That isn't nearly time enough."
"We must play faster—and hope for 'situations,' as they call them on the stage."
"Oh—the situation is bad enough, as it is," answered the young girl, with a change of manner that surprised her companion. "If you only knew!"
"Was that what you were going to tell me about?" asked Lawrence, quickly, and with renewed interest. "I thought you were making game of me."
"That's the trouble! You'll never believe that I'm in earnest, now. That's the worst of practical jokes. Come along! We must be going home. The sun's behind the hill and ever so low, I'm sure. We shan't get home before dusk. How sweet that fern smells! Give it back to me, won't you?"
They rose and began to walk homeward in the warm shadow of the woods. As before, Fanny went first along the narrow path, and Lawrence, following close behind her, and watching the supple grace of her as she moved, breathed in also the intoxicating perfume of the aromatic sweet fern which she still carried in her hand.