Seated at the schoolroom piano, Piers was thoroughly in his element. He had a marvellous gift for making music, and his audience listened spell-bound. His own love for it amounted to a passion, inherited, so it was said, from his Italian grandmother. He threw his whole soul into the instrument under his hands, and played as one inspired.
Jeanie, from her sofa, drank in the music with shining eyes. She had never heard anything to compare with it before, and it stirred her to the depths.
It stirred Avery also, but in a different way. The personality of the player forced itself upon her with a curious insistence, and she had an odd feeling that he did it by deliberate intention. Every chord he struck seemed to speak to her directly, compelling her attention, dominating her will. He was playing to her alone, and, though she chose to ignore the fact, she was none the less aware of it. By his music he enthralled her, making her see the things he saw, making her feel the fiery unrest that throbbed in every beat of his heart.
Gracie, standing beside him, watching with fascinated eyes the strong hands that charmed from the old piano such music as probably it had never before uttered, was enthralled also, but only in a superficial sense. She was keenly interested in the play of his fingers, which seemed to her quite wonderful, as indeed it was.
He took no more notice of her admiring gaze than if she had been a fly, pouring out his magic flood of music with eyes fixed straight before him and lips that were sometimes hard and sometimes tender. He might have been a man in a trance.
And then very suddenly the spell was broken. For no apparent reason, he fell headlong from his heights and burst into a merry little jig that set Gracie dancing like an elf.
He became aware of her then, threw her a laugh, quickened to a mad tarantella that nearly whirled her off her feet, finally ended with a crashing chord, and whizzed round on the music-stool in time to catch her as she fell gasping against him.
"What a featherweight you are!" he laughed. "You'll dance the Thames on fire some day. Giddy, what?"
Gracie lay in his arms in a collapsed condition. "You—you made me do it!" she panted.
"To be sure!" said Piers. "I'm a wizard. Didn't you know? I can make anybody do anything." There was a ring of triumph in his voice.
Jeanie drew a deep breath and nodded from her sofa. "It's called hyp—hyp—Aunt Avery, what is the word?"
"Aunt Avery doesn't know," said Piers. "And why Aunt Avery, I wonder?You'll be calling me Uncle Piers next."
Both children laughed. "I have a special name for you," Jeanie said.
But Piers was not attending. He cast a daring glance across the room atAvery who was darning stockings under the lamp.
"Do they call you Aunt Avery because you are so old?" he enquired, asAvery did not respond to it.
She smiled a little. "I expect so," she said.
"Oh no!" said Jeanie politely. "Only because we are children and she is grown up."
Piers, with Gracie still lounging comfortably on his knee, bowed to her."I thank your majesty. I appeal to you as queen of this establishment; amI—as a grown-up—entitled to drop the title of Aunt when addressing thegracious lady in question?"
Again he glanced towards Avery, but she did not raise her eyes. She worked on, still with that faint, enigmatical smile about her lips.
Jeanie looked slightly dubious. "I don't think you could ever call herAunt, could you?" she said.
Piers turned upon the music-stool, and with one of Gracie's fingers began to pick out an impromptu tune that somehow had a saucy ring.
"I like that," said Gracie, enchanted.
He laughed. "Yes, it's pretty, isn't it? It's—Avery without the Aunt."
He began to elaborate the tune, accompanying it with his left hand, to Gracie's huge delight, "Here we come into a minor key," he said, speaking obviously and exclusively to Gracie; "this is Avery when she is cross and inclined to be down on a fellow. And here we begin to get a little excited and breathless; this is Avery in a tantrum, getting angrier and angrier every moment." He hammered out his impertinent little melody with fevered energy, protest from Gracie notwithstanding. "No, you've never seen her in a tantrum of course. Thank your lucky stars you haven't! It's an awful sight, take my word for it! She calls you a brute and nearly knocks you down with a horsewhip." The music became very descriptive at this point; then gradually returned to the original refrain, somewhat amplified and embellished. "This is Avery in her everyday mood—sweet and kind and reasonable,—the Avery we all know and love—with just a hint of what the French call'diablerie'to make her—tout-à-fait adorable."
He cast his eyes up at the ceiling, and then, releasing Gracie's hand, brought his impromptu to a close with a few soft chords.
"Here endeth the Avery Symphony!" he declared, swinging round again on the music-stool. "I could show you another Avery, but she is not on view to everybody. It's quite possible that she has never seen herself yet."
He got up with the words, tweaked Gracie's hair, caressed Jeanie's, and strolled across to the fire beside which Avery sat with her work.
"It's awfully kind of you to tolerate me like this," he said.
"Isn't it?" said Avery, without raising her eyes.
He looked down at her, an odd gleam in his own that came and went like a leaping flame.
"You suffer fools gladly, don't you?" he said, a queer inflection that was half a challenge in his voice.
She frowned very slightly above her stocking. "Not particularly," she said.
"You bear with them then?" Piers tone was insistent.
She paused as though considering her reply. "I generally try to avoid them," she said finally.
"You keep aloof—and darn stockings," suggested Piers.
"And listen to your music," said Avery.
"Do you like my music?" He shot the question at her imperiously.
Avery nodded.
"Really? You do really?" There was boyish eagerness about him now. He leaned towards her, his brown face aglow.
She nodded again. "Do you ever—write music?"
"No," said Piers.
"Why not?"
He answered with a curious touch of bitterness. "No one would understand it if I did."
"But what a mistake!" she said.
"Is it? Why?" His voice sounded stubborn.
She looked suddenly straight up at him and spoke with impulsive warmth. "Because it is quite beside the point. It wouldn't matter to anyone but yourself whether people understood it or not. Of course popularity is pleasant. Everyone likes it. But do you suppose the really big people think at all about the world's opinion when they are at work? They just give of their best because nothing less would satisfy them, but they don't do it because they want to be appreciated by the crowd. Genius always gets above the crowd. It's only those who can't rise above their critics who really care what the critics say."
She stopped. Her face was flushed, her eyes kindling; but she lowered them very suddenly and returned to her work. For the fitful gleam in Piers' eyes had leaped in response to a blaze so hot, so ardent, that she could not meet it unflinching.
She was oddly grateful to him when he passed her brief confusion by as though he had not seen it. "So I'm a genius, am I?" he said, and laughed a careless laugh. "Are you listening, Queen of my heart? Aunt Avery says I'm a genius."
He moved to Jeanie's sofa, and sat down on the edge of it. Her hand stole instantly into his.
"Yes, of course," she said, in her soft, tired voice. "That's what I meant when I was trying to remember that other word—the word that begins 'hyp.'"
"Hypnotism," said Avery very quietly.
Piers laughed again. "It's a word you don't understand, my Queen of all good fairies. It's only the naughty fairies—the will-o'-the-wisps and the hobgoblins—that know anything about it. It's a wicked spell concocted by the King of Evil himself, and it's only under that spell that his prisoners ever see the light. It's the one ticket of leave from the dungeons, and they must either use it or die in the dark."
Jeanie was listening with a puzzled frown, but Gracie's imagination was instantly fired.
"Do go on!" she said eagerly. "I know what a ticket of leave is. Nurse's uncle had one. It means you have to go back after a certain time, doesn't it?"
"Exactly," said Piers grimly. "When the ticket expires."
"But I don't see," began Jeanie. Her face was flushed and a little distressed. "How can hypnotism be like—like a ticket of leave?"
"I told you you wouldn't understand," said Piers. "You see you've got to realize what hypnotism is before you can know what it's like. It's really the art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that other person see things as you want them to see them—not as they really are. It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And when that power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired—and the prisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person with him. Sometimes he goes alone."
He stopped abruptly as a hand rapped smartly on the door.
Avery looked up again from her work. "Come in!" she said.
"It's the doctor!" whispered Gracie to Piers. "Bother him!"
Piers laughed with his lower lip between his teeth, and Lennox Tudor opened the door and paused upon the threshold.
Avery rose to receive him, but his look passed her almost instantly and rested frowningly upon Piers.
"Enter the Lord High Executioner!" said Piers flippantly. "Well? Who is the latest victim? And what have you come here for?"
The doctor came in. He shook hands with Avery, and turned at once toPiers.
"I have come to see my patient," he said aggressively.
"Have you?" said Piers. "So have I." He stood up, squaring his broad shoulders. "And I'm coming again—by special invitation." His dark eyes flung a gibe with the words.
"Good-bye, Mr. Evesham!" said Avery somewhat pointedly.
He turned sharply, and took her extended hand with elaborate courtesy.
"Good-bye,—Mrs. Denys!" he said.
"I'll come down and see you off," cried Gracie, attaching herself to his free arm.
"Ah! Wait a bit!" said Piers. "I haven't said good-bye to the Queen of the fairies yet."
He dropped upon one knee by Jeanie's sofa. Her arm slid round his neck.
"When will you come again?" she whispered.
"When do you hold your next court?" he whispered back.
She smiled, her pale face close to his. "I love to see you—always," she said. "Come just any time!"
"Shall I?" said Piers.
He was looking straight into the tired, blue eyes, and his own were soft with a tenderness that must have charmed any child to utter confidence. She lifted her lips to his. "As often as ever you can," she murmured.
He kissed her. "I will. Good-night, my Queen!"
"Good-night," she answered softly, "dear Sir Galahad!"
Avery had a glimpse of Piers' face as he went away, and she wondered momentarily at the look it wore.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, and Avery had been shopping.
She and Mrs. Lorimer were preparing a Christmas Tree for the children, a secret to which only Jeanie had been admitted. The tree itself was already procured and hidden away in a corner of the fruit cupboard—to which special sanctum Mrs. Lorimer and Avery alone had access. But the numerous gifts and ornaments which they had been manufacturing for weeks were safely stored in a corner of Avery's own room. It was to complete this store that Avery had been down into Rodding that afternoon, and she was returning laden and somewhat wearied.
The red light of a cloudy winter sunset lay behind her. Ahead of her, now veiled, now splendidly revealed, there hung a marvellous, glimmering star. A little weight of sadness was dragging at her heart, but she would not give it place or so much as acknowledge its presence. She hummed a carol as she went, stepping lightly through the muddy fields.
The frost had given place to an unseasonable warmth, and there had been some heavy rain earlier in the day. It was threatening to rain again. In fact, as she mounted her second stile, the first drops of what promised to be a sharp shower began to fall. She cast a hasty glance around for shelter, and spied some twenty yards away against the hedge a hut which had probably been erected for the use of some shepherd. Swiftly she made for it, reaching it just as the shower became a downpour.
There was neither door nor window to the place, but an ancient shutter which had evidently done duty for the former was lodged against the wall immediately inside.
She had to stoop to enter, and but for the pelting rain she might have hesitated to do so; for the darkness within was complete. But once in, she turned her face back to the dying light of the sunset and saw that the rain would not last.
At the same moment she heard a curious sound behind her, a panting, coughing sound as of some creature in distress, and something stirred in the furthest corner. Sharply she turned, and out of the darkness two wild green eyes glared up at her.
Avery's heart gave a great jerk. Instinctively she drew back. Her first impulse was to turn and flee, but something—something which at the moment she could not define—prompted her to remain. The frantic terror of those eyes appealed to that in her which was greater than her own personal fear.
She paused therefore, and in the pause there came to her ears a swelling tumult that arose from the ridge of an eminence a couple of fields away. Right well Avery knew that sound. In the far-off days of her early girlhood it had quickened her pulses many a time. It was enough even now to set every nerve throbbing with a tense excitement.
She turned her face once more to the open, and as she did so she heard again in the hut behind her that agonized sound, half-cough, half-whine, of an animal exhausted and in the extremity of mortal fear.
It was enough for Avery. She grasped the situation on the instant, and on the instant she acted. She felt as if a helpless and tortured being had cried to her for deliverance, and all that was great in her responded to the cry.
She seized the crazy shutter that was propped against the wall, put forth her strength, and lifted it out into the open. It was no easy matter to set it securely against the low doorway. She wondered afterwards how she did it; at the time she tore her gloves to ribbons with the exertion, but yet was scarcely aware of making any.
When the pack swept across the grass in a single yelling, heaving mass, she was ready. She leaned against the improvised door with arms outstretched and resolutely faced the swarming, piebald multitude.
In a moment the hounds were upon her. She was waist-deep in them. They leapt almost to her shoulders in their madness, smothering her with mud and slobber. For a second or two the red eyes and gaping jaws made even Avery's brave heart quail. But she stood her ground, ordering them back with breathless insistence. They must have thought her a maniac, she reflected afterwards. At the time she fully expected to be torn in pieces, and was actually surprised when they suddenly parted and swept round the hut, encircling it with deep-mouthed baying.
The huntsman, arriving on the scene, found her white-faced but still determined, still firmly propping the shutter in place with the weight of her body. He called the hounds to order with hoarse oaths and furious crackings of the whip, and as he did so the rest of the field began to arrive, a laughing, trampling crowd of sportsmen who dropped into staring, astounded silence as they reached the scene.
And then the huntsman addressed Avery with sardonic affability.
"P'r'aps now, miss, you'd be good enough to step aside and let the 'ounds attend to business."
But Avery, with eyes that blazed in her pale face, made scathing answer.
"You shan't kill the poor brute like a rat in a trap. He deserves better than that. You had your chance of killing in the open, and you failed. It isn't sport to kill in the dark."
"We'll soon have 'im out," said the huntsman grimly.
She shook her head. Her hands, in the ripped gloves, were clenched and quivering.
The huntsman slashed and swore at one of the hounds to relieve his feelings, and looked for inspiration to the growing crowd of riders.
One of them, the M.F.H., Colonel Rose of Wardenhurst, pushed his horse forward. He raised his hat with extreme courtliness.
"Madam," he said, "while appreciating your courage, allow me to point out that that fox is now the legal property of the Hunt, and you have no right whatever to deprive us of it."
His daughter Ina, a slim girl of twenty, was at his elbow. She jogged it impatiently. "He'll remain our property whether we kill or not, Dad. Let him live to run again!"
"What?" cried a voice in the rear. "Let a woman interfere? Great Heavens above, Barchard! Have you gone mad?"
Barchard the huntsman glanced round uneasily as an old man on a powerful white horse forced his way to the front. His grey eyes glowered down at Avery as though he would slay her. The trampling hoofs came within a yard of her. But if he thought to make her desert her post by that means, he was mistaken. She stood there, actually waiting to be hustled by the fretting animal, and yielding not an inch.
"Stand aside!" thundered Sir Beverley. "Confound you! Stand aside!"
But Avery never stirred. She faced him panting but unflinching. The foam of his hunter splashed her, the mud from the stamping hoofs struck upwards on her face; but still she stood to defend the defenceless thing behind her.
She often wondered afterwards what Sir Beverley would have done had he been left to settle the matter in his own way. She was horribly afraid, but she certainly would never have yielded to aught but brute force.
But at this juncture there came a sudden diversion. Another voice made itself heard in furious protest. Another horse was spurred forward; and Piers, white to the lips, with eyes of awful flame, leaned from his saddle and with his left hand caught Sir Beverley's bridle, dragging his animal back.
What he said Avery did not hear; it was spoken under his breath. But she saw a terrible look flash like an evil spirit into Sir Beverley's face. She saw his right arm go up, and heard his riding-crop descend with a sound like a pistol-shot upon Piers' shoulders.
It was a horrible sight and one which she was never to forget. Both horses began to leap madly, the one Sir Beverley rode finally rearing and being pulled down again by Piers who hung on to the bridle like grim death, his head bent, his shoulders wholly exposed to those crashing merciless blows.
They reeled away at length through the crowd, which scattered in dismay to let them pass, but for many seconds it seemed to Avery that the awful struggle went on in the dusk as Piers dragged his grandfather from the spot.
A great weakness had begun to assail her. Her knees were quivering under her. She wondered what the next move would be, and felt utterly powerless to put forth any further effort. And then she heard Ina Rose's clear young voice.
"Barchard, take the hounds back to kennels! I'm sure we've all had enough for one day."
"Hear, hear!" said a man in the crowd.
And Ina laughed. "Thank you, Dick! Come along, Dad! Leave the horrid old fox alone! Don't you think we ought to go and separate Sir Beverley and Piers? What an old pepper-pot he is!"
"Piers isn't much better," remarked the man she had called Dick. His proper appellation was Richard Guyes, but his friends never stood on ceremony with him.
The girl laughed again inconsequently. She was spoken of by some as the spoilt beauty of the county. "Oh, Piers is stuffed tight with gunpowder as everybody knows. He explodes at a touch. Get along, Barchard! What are you waiting for? I told you to take the hounds home."
Barchard looked at the Colonel.
"I suppose you'd better," the latter said. He threw a glance of displeasure at Avery. "It's a most unheard of affair altogether, but I admit there's not much to be said for a kill in cold blood. Yes, take 'em home!"
Barchard made a savage cut at two of the hounds who were scratching and whimpering at a tiny chink in the boarding, and with surly threats collected the pack and moved off.
The rest of the field melted away into the deepening dusk. Ina and DickGuyes were among the last to go. They moved off side by side.
"It'll be the laugh of the county," the man said, "but, egad, I like her pluck."
And in answer the girl laughed again, a careless, merry laugh. "Yes, I wonder who she is. A friend of Piers' apparently. Did you see what a stiff fury he was in?"
"It was a fairly stiff flogging," remarked Guyes. "Ye gods! I wonder how he stood it."
"Oh, Piers can stand anything," said Ina unconcernedly. "He's as strong as an ox."
The voices dwindled and died in the distance. The dusk deepened. A sense of utter forlornness, utter weariness, came upon Avery. The struggle was over, and she had emerged triumphant; but it did not seem to matter. She could think only of those awful blows raining down upon the defenceless shoulders of the boy who had championed her. And, leaning there in the drizzling wet, she covered her face with her hands and wept.
There came the swift drumming of galloping hoofs, the check and pause of a leap, and then close at hand the thud of those same hoofs landing on the near side of the hedge. The rider slithered to the ground, patted the animal's neck, and turned forthwith towards the hut. Avery heard nought of his coming. She was crying like a weak, unnerved woman, draggled and mud-spattered, unspeakably distressed. It was so seldom that she gave way that perhaps the failure of her self-control was the more absolute when it came. She had been tried beyond her strength. Body and mind were alike exhausted.
But when strong arms suddenly encircled her and she found herself drawn close to a man's breast, quick and instinctive came the impulse to resist. She drew back from him with a sharp exclamation.
"It's only me," said Piers. "Surely you don't mind me!"
It was naively expressed, so naively that she assayed to laugh in the midst of her woe. "Oh, how you startled me!" was all she found to say.
"But surely you knew I was coming back!" he said.
The dogged note was in his voice. It embarrassed her subtly. Seeing his face through the deepening gloom, it seemed to her to be set in stern, unyielding lines.
She collected her scattered forces, and gently put his arms away from her. "It was very kind of you, Mr. Evesham," she said. "But please remember that I'm not Jeanie!"
He made an impulsive movement of impatience. "I never pretended you were," he said gruffly. "But you were crying, weren't you? Why were you crying?"
His tone was almost aggressive. He seemed to be angry, but whether with her, himself, or a third person, Avery could not determine.
She decided that the situation demanded firmness, and proceeded to treat it accordingly.
"I was very foolish to cry," she said. "I have quite recovered now, so please forget it! It was very kind of you to take my part a little while ago—especially as you couldn't have been really in sympathy with me. Thank you very much!"
Again he made that gesture of imperious impatience. "Oh, don't be so beastly formal! I can't stand it. If it had been any other man threatening you, I believe I should have killed him!"
He spoke with concentrated passion, but Avery was resolved not to be tragic. She was striving to get back to wholesome commonplace.
"What a good thing it wasn't!" she said. "I shouldn't have cared to have been responsible for that. I had quite enough to answer for as it was. I hope you will make peace with your grandfather as soon as possible."
Piers laughed a savage laugh. "He broke his whip over me. Do you thinkI'm going to make peace with him for that?"
"Oh, Piers!" she exclaimed in distress.
It was out before she could check it—that involuntary use of his Christian name for which it seemed to her afterwards he had been deliberately lying in wait.
He did not take immediate advantage of her slip, but she knew that he noticed it, registered it as it were for future reference.
"No," he said moodily, after a pause. "I don't think the debt is on my side this time. He had the satisfaction of flogging me with the whole Hunt looking on." There was sullen resentment in his tone, and then very suddenly to Avery's amazement he began to laugh. "It was worth it anyway, so we won't cavil about the price. How much longer are you going to bottle up that unfortunate brute? Don't you think it's time he went home to his wife?"
Avery moved away from the shutter against which she had stood so long. "I couldn't let him be killed," she said. "You won't understand, of course. But I simply couldn't."
"Why shouldn't I understand?" said Piers. "You threw that in my teeth before. I don't know why."
His tone baffled her. She could not tell whether he spoke in jest or earnest. She refrained from answering him, and in the silence that followed he lifted the shutter away from the hut entrance and looked inside. Avery's basket of purchases lay at his feet. He picked it up. "Come along! He's crouched up in the corner, and his eyes look as if he thought all the devils in hell were after him. Odd as it may seem to you, I can understand his feelings—and yours. Let's go, and leave him to escape in peace!"
He took her arm as naturally as though he had a right, and led her away. Her basket was in his other hand in which he carried his riding-whip also. He whistled over his shoulder to his horse who followed him like a dog.
The rain was gradually ceasing, but the clouds had wholly closed upon the sunset. Avery did not want to walk in silence, but somehow she could not help it. His hold upon her arm was as light as a feather, but she could not help that either for the moment. She walked as one beneath a spell.
And before them the clouds slowly parted, and again there shone that single, magic star, dazzingly pure against the darkness.
"Do you see that?" said Piers suddenly.
She assented almost under her breath.
For a moment she was conscious of the tightening of his hand at herelbow. "It's the Star of Hope, Avery," he whispered. "Yours—and mine."He stopped with the words. "Don't say anything!" he said hurriedly."Pretend you didn't hear, if—if you wish you hadn't. Goodbye!"
He thrust her basket into her hand, and turned from her.
A moment he stood as if to give her the opportunity of detaining him if she so desired, and then as she made no sign he went to his horse who waited a couple of yards away, mounted, and without word or salute rode away.
Avery drew a deep, deep breath and walked on. There was a curious sensation at her heart—almost a trapped feeling—such as she had never before experienced. Again deeply she drew her breath, as if to rid herself of some oppression. Life was difficult—life was difficult!
But presently, as she walked, the sense of oppression lessened. She even faintly smiled to herself. What an odd, passionate youth he was! It was impossible to be angry with him; better far not to take him seriously at all.
She recalled old Mrs. Marshall's dour remarks concerning him;—"brought up by men from his cradle," brought up, moreover, by that terrible old Sir Beverley on the one hand and an irresponsible French valet on the other. She caught herself wishing that she had had the upbringing of him, and smiled again. There was a great deal of sweetness in his nature; of that she was sure, and because of it she found she could forgive his waywardness, reflecting that he had probably been mismanaged from his earliest infancy.
At this point she reached the high-road, and heard the wheels of a dog-cart behind her. She recognized the quick, hard trot of the doctor's cob, and paused at the side of the road to let him pass. But the doctor's eyes behind their glasses were keen as a hawk's. He recognized her, the deepening dusk notwithstanding, while he was still some yards from her, and pulled in his horse to a walk.
"Jump up!" he said. "I'm going your way."
He reached down a hand to her, and Avery mounted beside him. "How lucky for me!" she said.
"Tired, eh?" he questioned.
She laughed a little. "Oh no, not really. But it's nice to get a lift.Were you coming to see Jeanie?"
"Yes," said Tudor briefly.
She glanced at him, caught by something in his tone. "Dr. Tudor," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "are you—altogether—satisfied about her?"
Tudor was looking at his horse's ears; for some reason he was holding the animal in to a walk. "I am quite satisfied with regard to the fracture," he said. "She will soon be on her legs again."
His words were deliberately wary. Avery felt a little tremor of apprehension go through her.
"I'm afraid you don't consider her very strong," she said uneasily.
He did not at once reply. She had a feeling that he was debating within himself as to the advisability of replying at all. And then quite suddenly he turned his head and spoke. "Mrs. Denys, you are accustomed to hearing other people's burdens, so I may as well tell you the truth. I can't say—because I don't know—if there is anything radically wrong with that little girl; but she has no stamina whatever. If she had to contend with anything serious, things would go very badly with her. In any case—" he paused.
"Yes?" said Avery.
Tudor had become wary again. "Perhaps I have said enough," he said.
"I don't know why you should hesitate to speak quite openly," she rejoined steadily. "As you say, I am a bearer of burdens. And I don't think I am easily frightened."
"I am sure you are not," he said. "If I may be allowed to say so, I think you are essentially a woman to be relied on. If I did not think so, I certainly should not have spoken as I have done."
"Then will you tell me what it is that you fear for her?" Avery said.
He was looking straight at her through the gloom, but she could not see his eyes behind their glasses. "Well," he said somewhat brusquely at length, "to be quite honest, I fear—mind you, I only fear—some trouble, possibly merely some delicacy, of the lungs. Without a careful examination I cannot speak definitely. But I think there is little room for doubt that the tendency is there."
"I see," Avery said. She was silent a moment; then, "You have not considered it advisable to say this to her father?" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Would it make any difference?"
Avery was silent.
He went on with gathering force. "I went to him once, Mrs. Denys,—once only—about his wife's health. I told him in plain language that she needed every care, every consideration, that without these she would probably lose all her grip on life and become a confirmed invalid with shattered nerves. I was very explicit. I told him the straight, unvarnished truth. I didn't like my job, but I felt it must be done. And he—good man—laughed in my face, begged me to croak no more, and assured me that he was fully capable of managing all his affairs, including his wife and family, in his own way. He was touring in Switzerland when the last child was born."
"Hound!" said Avery, in a low voice.
Tudor uttered a brief laugh, and abruptly quitted the subject. "That little girl needs very careful watching, Mrs. Denys. She should never be allowed to overtire herself, mentally or physically. And if she should develop any untoward symptom, for Heaven's sake don't hesitate to send for me! I shan't blame you for being too careful."
"I understand," Avery said.
He flicked his horse's ears, and the animal broke into a trot.
When Tudor spoke again, it was upon a totally different matter. His voice was slightly aggressive as he said: "That Evesham boy seems to be for ever turning up at the Vicarage now. He's an ill-mannered cub. I wonder you encourage him."
"Do I encourage him?" Avery asked.
He made a movement of irritation. "He would scarcely be such a constant visitor if you didn't."
Avery smiled faintly and not very humorously in the darkness. "It isJeanie he comes to see," she observed.
"Oh, obviously." Tudor's retort was so ironical as to be almost rude.
She received it in silence, and after a moment he made a half-grudging amendment.
"He never showed any interest in Jeanie before, you know. I don't think she is the sole attraction."
"No?" said Avery.
Her response was perfectly courteous, but so vague that it sounded to Lennox Tudor as if she were thinking of something else. He clenched his hand hard upon the handle of his whip.
"People tolerate him for the sake of his position," he said bitterly. "But to my mind he is insufferable. His father was a scapegrace, as everyone knows. His mother was a circus girl. And his grandmother—an Italian—was divorced by Sir Beverley before they had been married two years."
"Oh!" Avery emerged from her vagueness and turned towards him. "Lady Evesham was Italian, was she? That accounts for his appearance, doesn't it? That air of the old Roman patrician about him; you must have noticed it?"
"He's handsome enough," admitted Tudor.
"Oh, very handsome," said Avery. "I should say that for that type his face was almost faultless. I wondered where he got it from. Sir Beverley is patrician too, but in a different way." She stopped to bow to a tall, gaunt lady at the side of the road. "That is Miss Whalley. Didn't you see her? I expect she has just come from the Vicarage. She was going to discuss the scheme for the Christmas decorations with the Vicar."
"She's good at scheming," growled Tudor.
Avery became silent again. At the Vicarage gates however very suddenly and sweetly she spoke. "Dr. Tudor, forgive me,—but isn't it rather a pity to let oneself get intolerant? It does spoil life so."
He looked at her. "There's not much in my life that could spoil," he said gloomily.
She laughed a little, but not derisively. "But there's always something, isn't there? Have you no sense of humour?"
He pulled up at the Vicarage gates. "I have a sense of the ridiculous," he said bluntly. "And I detest it in the person of Miss Whalley."
"I believe you detest a good many people," Avery said, as she descended.
He laughed himself at that. "But I am capable of appreciating the few," he said. "Mind the step! And don't trouble to wait for me! I've got to tie this animal up."
He stopped to do so, and Avery opened the gate and walked slowly up the path.
At the porch she paused to await him, and turned her face for a moment to the darkening sky. But the Star of Hope was veiled.
"Piers! Where the devil are you, Piers?"
There was loud exasperation in the query as Sir Beverley halted in the doorway of his grandson's bedroom.
There was a moment's pause; then Victor the valet came quickly forward.
"But,Monsieur Pierre, he bathe himself," he explained, with beady eyes running over the gaunt old figure in the entrance.
Sir Beverley growled at him inarticulately and turned away.
A moment later he was beating a rousing tattoo on the bathroom-door."Piers! Let me in! Do you hear? Let me in!"
The vigorous splashing within came to a sudden stop. "That you, sir?" called Piers.
"Of course it's me!" shouted back Sir Beverley, shaking the door with fierce impatience. "Damn it, let me in! I'll force the door if you don't."
"No, don't, sir; don't! I'm coming!"
There came the sound of a splashing leap, and bare feet raced across the bathroom floor. The door was wrenched from Sir Beverley's grasp, and flung open. Piers, quite naked, stood back and bowed him in with elaborate ceremony.
Sir Beverley entered and glared at him.
Piers shut the door and took a flying jump back into the bath. The room was dense with steam.
"You don't mind if I go on with my wash, do you?" he said. "I shall be late for dinner if I don't."
"What in thunder do you want to boil yourself like this for?" demandedSir Beverley.
Piers, seated with his hands clasped round his knees, looked up with the smile of an infant. "It suits my constitution, sir," he said. "I freeze myself in the morning and boil myself at night—always. By that means I am rendered impervious to all atmospheric changes of temperature."
"You're a fool, Piers," said Sir Beverley.
Piers laughed, a gay, indifferent laugh. "That all?" he said lightly.
"No, it isn't all." Sir Beverley's voice had a curious forced ring, almost as if he were stern in spite of himself. "I came to ask—and I mean to know—" He broke off. "What the devil have you done to your shoulders?"
Piers' hands unlocked as if at the touch of a spring. He slipped down backwards into the bath and lay with the water lapping round his black head. His eyes, black also, and very straight and resolute, looked up at Sir Beverley.
"Look here, sir; if there's anything you want to know I'll tell you after dinner. I thought—possibly—you'd come to shake hands, or I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to let you in. As it is,—"
"Confound you, Piers!" broke in Sir Beverley. "Don't preach to me! Sit up again! Do you hear? Sit up, and let me look at you!"
But Piers made no movement to comply. "No, sir; thanks all the same. I don't want to be looked at. Do you mind going now? I'm going to splash."
His tone was deliberately jaunty, but it held undoubted determination.He kept his eyes unswervingly on his grandfather's face.
Sir Beverley stood his ground, however, his black brows fiercely drawn. "Get up, Piers!" he ordered, his tone no longer blustering, but curtly peremptory. "Get up, do you hear?" he added with a gleam of humour. "You may as well give in at once, you young mule. You'll have to in the end."
"Shall I?" said Piers.
And then suddenly his own sense of humour was kindled again, and he uttered his boyish laugh.
"We won't quarrel about it, what?" he said, and stretched a wet hand upwards. "Let's consider the incident closed! There's nothing whatever to be fashed about."
Sir Beverley's thin lips twitched a little. He pulled at the hand, and slowly Piers yielded. The water dripped from his shoulders. They gleamed in the strong light like a piece of faultless statuary, godlike, superbly strong. But it was upon no splendour of form that Sir Beverley's attention was focussed.
He spoke after a moment, an odd note of contrition in his voice. "I didn't mean to mark you like that, boy. It was your own doing of course. You shouldn't have interfered with me. Still—"
"Oh, rats!" said Piers, beginning to splash. "What's a whacking more or less when you're used to 'em?"
His dark eyes laughed their impudent dismissal to the old man. It was very evident that he desired to put an end to the matter, and after a moment Sir Beverley grunted and withdrew.
He had not asked what he wanted to know; somehow it had not been possible. He had desired to put his question in a whirl of righteous indignation, but in some fashion Piers had disarmed him and it had remained unuttered.
The very sight of the straight, young figure had quenched the fire of his wrath. Confound the boy! Did he think he could insult him as he had insulted him only that afternoon and then twist him round his little finger? He would have it out with him presently. He would have the truth and no compromise, if he had to wring it out of him. He would—Again the vision of those strong young shoulders, with red stripes crossing their gleaming white surface, rose before Sir Beverley. He swore a strangled oath. No, he hadn't meant to punish the boy to that extent, his infernal impudence notwithstanding. It wasn't the first time he had thrashed him, and, egad, it mightn't be the last. But he hadn't meant to administer quite such a punishment as that. It was decent of the young rascal not to sulk after it, though he wasn't altogether sure that he approved of the light fashion with which Piers had elected to treat the whole episode. It looked as if he had not wholly taken to heart the lesson Sir Beverley had intended to convey, and if that were the case—again Sir Beverley swore deep in his soul—he was fully equal to repeating it, ay, and again repeating it, until the youngster came to heel. He never had endured any nonsense from Piers, and, by Gad, he never would!
With these reflections he stumped downstairs, and seated himself on the black, oaken settle in the hall to await the boy's advent.
The fire blazed cheerily, flinging ruddy gleams upon the shining suits of armour, roaring up the chimney in a sheet of flame. Sir Beverley sat facing the stairs, the grim lines hardened to implacability about his mouth, his eyes fixed in a stare that had in it something brutal. He was seeing again that slim, straight figure of womanhood standing in his path, with arms outstretched, and white, determined face upraised, barring the way.
"Curse her!" he growled. "Curse 'em all!"
The vision grew before his gaze of hate; and now she was no longer standing between him and a mere, defenceless animal. But there, on his own stairs, erect and fearless, she withstood him, while behind her, descending with a laugh on his lips and worship in his eyes, came Piers.
The stone-grey eyes became suffused; for a few, whirling moments of bewilderment and fury, they saw all things red. Then, gradually, the mist cleared, and the old man dropped back in a lounging posture with an ugly sound in his throat that was like a snarl. Doubtless that was her game; doubtless—doubtless! He had always known that a day would come when something of the kind would happen. Piers was young, wealthy, handsome,—a catch for any woman; but—fiercely he swore it—he should fall a prey to no schemer. When he married—as marry eventually he must—he should make an alliance of which any man might be proud. The Evesham blood should mix with none but the highest. In Piers he would see the father's false step counteracted. He thanked Heaven that he had never been able to detect in the boy any trace of the piece of cheap prettiness that had given him birth. He might have been his own son, son of the woman who had been the rapture and the ruin of his life. There were times when Sir Beverley almost wished he had been, albeit in the bitterness of his soul he had never had any love for the child she had borne him.
He had never wanted to love Piers either, but somehow the matter had not rested with him. From the arms of Victor, Piers had always yearned to his grandfather, wailing lustily till he found himself held to the hard old heart that had nought but harshness and intolerance for all the world beside. He had as it were taken that unwilling heart by storm, claiming it as his right before he was out of his cradle. And later the attachment between them had grown and thriven, for Piers had never relinquished the ground he had won in babyhood. By sheer arrogance of possession he had held his own till the impetuous ardour of his affection and the utter fearlessness on which it was founded had made of him the cherished idol of the heart which had tried to shut him out. Sir Beverley gloried in the boy though he still flattered himself that no one suspected the fact, and still believed that his rule was a rule of stern discipline under which Piers might chafe but against which he would never openly revolt.
He could not remember a single occasion upon which he had not been able to master Piers, possibly after a fierce struggle but always with absolute completeness in the end. And there was so much of sweetness in the youngster's nature that, unruly though he might be, he never nurtured a grievance. He would fight for his own way to the last of his strength, but when beaten he always yielded with a good grace. To his grandfather alone he could submit without any visible wound to his pride. Who could help glorying in a boy like that?
David the butler, a man of infinite respectability, came softly into the hall and approached his master.
"Are you ready for dinner, Sir Beverley?"
"No," snapped Sir Beverley. "Can't you see Master Piers isn't here?"
"Very good, sir," murmured David, and retired decorously, fading into the background without the faintest sound, while Caesar the Dalmatian who had entered with him lay sedately down in well-bred silence at Sir Beverley's feet.
There fell a pause, while Sir Beverley's eyes returned to the wide oak staircase, watching it ceaselessly, with vulture-like intentness. Then after the passage of minutes, there came the sound of feet that literally scampered along the corridor above, and in a moment, with meteor-like suddenness, Piers flashed into view.
He seemed to descend the stairs without touching them, and was greeted at the foot by Caesar, who leapt to meet him with wide-mouthed delight.
"Hullo, you scamp, hullo!" laughed Piers, responding to the dog's caresses with a careless hand. "Out of the way with you! I'm late."
"As usual," observed Sir Beverley, leaning slowly forward, still with his eyes unblinkingly fixed upon his grandson's merry face. "Come here, boy!"
Piers came to him unabashed.
Sir Beverley got heavily to his feet and took him by the shoulder. "Who is that woman, Piers?" he said, regarding him piercingly.
Piers' forehead was instantly drawn by a quick frown. He stood passive, but there was a suggestion of resistance about him notwithstanding.
"Whom do you mean, sir?" he said. "What woman?"
"You know very well who I mean," snarled Sir Beverley. "Come, I'll have none of your damn' nonsense. Never have stood it and never will. Who was that white-faced cat that got in my way this afternoon and helped you to a thrashing? Eh, Piers? Who was she, I say? Who was she?"
Piers made a sharp involuntary movement of the hands, and as swiftly restrained himself. He looked his grandfather full in the face.
"Ask me after dinner, sir," he said, speaking with something of an effort, "and I'll tell you all I know."
"You'll tell me now!" declared Sir Beverley, shaking the shoulder he gripped with savage impatience.
But Piers put up a quick hand and stopped him. "No, sir, not now. Come and dine first! I've no mind to go dinnerless to bed. Come, sir, don't badger me!" He smiled suddenly and very winningly into the stern grey eyes. "There's all the evening before us, and I shan't shirk."
He drew the bony old hand away from his shoulder, and pulled it through his arm.
"I suppose you think you're irresistible," grumbled Sir Beverley. "I don't know why I put up with you; on my soul, I don't, you impudent young dog!"
Piers laughed. "Let's do one thing at a time anyway, and I'm ravenous for dinner. So must you be. Come along! Let's trot in and have it!"
He had his way. Sir Beverley went with him, though half against his will. They entered the dining-room still linked together, and a woman's face smiled down upon them from a picture-frame on the wall with a smile half-sad, half-mocking—such a smile as even at that moment curved Piers' lips, belying the reckless gaiety of his eyes.
They dined in complete amicability. Piers had plenty to say at all times, and he showed himself completely at his ease. He was the only person in the world who ever was so in Sir Beverley's presence. He even now and then succeeded in provoking a sardonic laugh from his grandfather. His own laughter was boyishly spontaneous.
But at the end of the meal, when wine was placed upon the table, he suddenly ceased his careless chatter, and leaned forward with his dark eyes full upon Sir Beverley's face.
"Now, sir, you want to know the name of the girl who wasn't afraid of youthis afternoon, I mentioned her to you once before. Her name is AveryDenys. She is a widow; and she calls herself the mother's help at theVicarage."
He gave his information with absolute steadiness. His voice was wholly free from emotion of any sort, but it rang a trifle stern, and his mouth—that sensitive, clean-cut mouth of his—had the grimness of an iron resolution about it. Sir Beverley looked at him frowningly over his wine.
"The woman who threw a pail of water over you once, eh?" he said, after a moment. "I suppose she has become a very special friend in consequence."
"I doubt if she would call herself so," said Piers.
The old man's mouth took a bitter, downward curve. "You see, you're rather young," he observed.
Piers' eyes fell away from his abruptly. "Yes, I know," he said, in a tone that seemed to hide more than it expressed.
Sir Beverley continued to stare at him, but he did not lift his eyes again. They were fixed steadily upon the ruby light that shone in the wine in front of him.
The silence lengthened and became oppressive. Sir Beverley still watched Piers' intent face. His lips moved soundlessly, while behind his silence the storm of his wrath gathered.
What did the boy mean by treating him like this? Did he think he would endure to be set aside thus deliberately as one whose words had no weight? Did he think—confound him!—did he think that he had reached his dotage?
A sudden oath escaped him; he banged a furious fist upon the table. He would make himself heard at least.
In the same instant quite unexpectedly Piers leaped to his feet with uplifted hand. "What's that?"
"What do you mean?" thundered Sir Beverley.
Piers' hand descended, gripping his arm. "That, sir, that! Don't you hear?"
Voice and gesture compelled. Sir Beverley stopped dead, arrested in full career by his grandson's insistence, and listened with pent breath, as Piers was listening.
For a moment or two he heard nothing, then, close outside the window, there arose the sound of children's voices. They were singing a hymn, but not in the customary untuneful yell of the village school. The voices were clear and sweet and true, and the words came distinct and pure to the two men standing at the table.
"He comes, the prisoners to releaseIn Satan's bondage held,The gates of brass before Him burst,The iron fetters yield."
Piers' hand tightened all-unconsciously upon Sir Beverley's arm. His face was very white. In his eyes there shone a curious hunger—such a look as might have gleamed in the eyes of the prisoners behind the gates.
Again came the words, triumphantly repeated:
"The gates of brass before Him burst,The iron fetters yield."
And an odd sound that was almost a sob broke from Piers.
Sir Beverley looked at him sharply; but in the same moment he drew back, relinquishing his hold, and stepped lightly across the room to the window.
There was a decided pause before the next verse. Piers stood with his face to the blind, making no movement. At last, tentatively, like the song of a very shy angel, a single boy's voice took up the melody.
"He comes, the broken heart to bind,The bleeding soul to cure,And with the treasures of His graceTo bless the humble poor."
Sir Beverley sat down again at the table. Half mechanically his eyes turned to the pictured face on the wall, the face that smiled so enigmatically. Not once in a year did his eyes turn that way. To-night he regarded it with half-ironical interest. He had no pity to spare for broken hearts. He did not believe in them. No man could have endured more than he had had to endure. He had been dragged through hell itself. But it had hardened, not broken his heart. Save in one respect he knew that he could never be made to suffer any more. Save for that charred remnant, there was nothing left for the flame to consume.
And so through all the bitter years he had borne that smiling face upon his wall, cynically indifferent to the beauty which had been the rapture and the agony of his life,—a man released from the place of his torment because his capacity for suffering was almost gone.
Again there were two children's voices singing, and that of the shy angel gathered confidence. With a species of scoffing humour Sir Beverley's stony eyes travelled to the window. They rested upon his boy standing there with bent head—a mute, waiting figure with a curious touch of pathos in its pose. Sir Beverley's sudden frown drew his forehead. What ailed the youngster? Why did he stand as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders?
He made an impatient movement. "For Heaven's sake," he said testily, "tell those squalling children to go!"
Piers did not stir. "In a moment, sir!" he said.
And so, clear through the night air, the last verse came unhindered to an end.
"Our glad hosannas, Prince of peace,Thy welcome shall proclaim;And Heaven's eternal arches ringWith Thy beloved Name.And Heaven's eternal arches ringWith Thy beloved Name."
Piers threw up his head with a sudden, spasmodic movement as of a drowning man. And then without pause he snatched up the blind and flung the window wide.
"Hi, you kiddies! Where are you? Don't run away! Gracie, is that you?"
There was a brief silence, then chirpily came the answer. "Pat did the solo; but he's gone. He would have gone sooner—when we saw your shadow on the blind—only I held him so that he couldn't."
Piers broke into a laugh. "Well, come in now you are here! You're not afraid anyhow, what?"
"Oh no!" laughed Gracie. "I'm not a bit afraid. But I'm supposed to be in bed; and if Father finds out I'm not—" She paused with her customary sense of the dramatic.
"Well?" laughed Piers. "What'll happen then?"
"I shall cop it," said Gracie elegantly.
Nevertheless she came to him, and stood on the grass outside the window. The lamplight from within shone on her upturned face with its saucy, confiding smile. Her head was uncovered and gleamed golden in the radiance. She was wearing a very ancient fur cloak belonging to her mother, and she glowed like a rose in the sombre drapery.
Piers stooped to her with hands invitingly outstretched. "Come along, Pixie! We shan't eat you, and I'll take you home on my shoulder afterwards and see you don't get copped."
She uttered a delighted little laugh, and went upwards into his hold like a scrap of floating thistledown.
He lifted her high in his arms, crossed the room with her, and set her down before the old man who still sat at the table, sardonically watching. "Miss Gracie Lorimer!" he said.
"Hullo, child!" growled Sir Beverley.
Gracie looked at him with sparkling, adventurous eyes. As she had told Piers, she was not a bit afraid. After the briefest pause she held out her hand with charminginsouciance.
"How do you do?" she said.
Sir Beverley slowly took the hand, and pulled her towards him, gazing at her from under his black brows with a piercing scrutiny that would have terrified a more timid child.
Timidity however was not one of Gracie's weaknesses. She gave him a friendly smile, and waited without the smallest sign of uneasiness for him to speak.
"What have you come here for?" he demanded gruffly at length.
"I'll tell you," said Gracie readily. She went close to him, confidingly close, looking straight into the formidable grey eyes. "You see, it was my idea. Pat didn't want to come, but I made him."
"Forward young minx!" commented Sir Beverley.
Gracie laughed at the compliment.
Piers, smoking his cigarette behind her, stood ready to take her part, but quite obviously she was fully equal to the occasion.
"Yes, I know," she agreed, with disarming amiability. "But it wouldn't have mattered a bit if you hadn't found out who it was. You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Why not?" demanded Sir Beverley.
Gracie pulled down her red lips, and cast up her dancing eyes. "There'd be such a scandal," she said.
Piers broke into an involuntary laugh, and Sir Beverley's thin lips twitched in a reluctant smile.
"You're a saucy little baggage!" he observed. "Well, get on! Let's hear what you've come for! Cadging money, I'll be bound."
Gracie nodded in eager confirmation of this suggestion. "That's just it!" she said. "And that's where the scandal would come in if you told. You see, poor children can go round squalling carols to their hearts' content for pennies, but children like us who want pennies just as much haven't any way of getting them. We mayn't carry hand-bags, or open carriage-doors, or turn cart-wheels, or—or do anything to earn a living. It's hard luck, you know."
"Beastly shame!" said Piers.
Sir Beverley scowled at him. "You needn't stick your oar in. Go and shut the window, do you hear? Now, child, let's have the truth, so far as any female is capable of speaking it! You've come here for pennies, you say. Don't you know that's a form of begging? And begging is breaking the law."
"I often do that," said Gracie, quite undismayed. "So would you, if you were me. I expect you did too when you were young."
"I!" Sir Beverley uttered a harsh laugh, and released the child's hand."So you break the law, do you?" he said. "How often?"
Gracie's laugh followed his like a silvery echo. "I shan't tell you 'cos you're a magistrate. But we weren't really begging, Pat and I. At least it wasn't for ourselves."
"Oh, of course not!" said Sir Beverley.
She looked at him with her clear eyes, unconscious of irony. "No. We wanted to buy a pair of gloves for someone for Christmas. And nice gloves cost such a lot, don't they? And we hadn't got more than tenpence-halfpenny among us. So I said I'd think of a plan to get more. And—that was the plan," ended Gracie, with her sweetest smile.
"I see," said Sir Beverley, with his eyes still fixed immovably upon her."And what made you come here?"
"Oh, we came here just because of Piers," said Gracie, without hesitation."You see, he's a great friend of ours."
"Is he?" said Sir Beverley. "And so you think you'll get what you can out of him, eh?"
"Sir!" said Piers sharply.
"Be quiet, Piers!" ordered his grandfather testily. "Who spoke to you?Well, madam, continue! How much do you consider him good for?"
Piers pulled a coin impetuously from his pocket and slapped it down on the table in front of Gracie. "There you are, Pixie!" he said. "I'm good for that."
Gracie stared at the coin with widening eyes, not offering to touch it.
"Oh, Piers!" she said, with a long indrawn breath. "It's a whole sovereign! Oh no!"
He laughed a reckless laugh, while over her head his eyes challenged his grandfather's. "That's all right, Piccaninny," he said lightly. "Put it in your pocket! And I'll come round with the car to-morrow and run you into Wardenhurst to buy those gloves."
But Gracie shook her head. "Gloves don't cost all that," she said practically. "And besides, you won't have any left for yourself. Fancy giving away a whole sovereign at a time!" She addressed Sir Beverley. "It seems almost a tempting of Providence, doesn't it!"
"The deed of a fool!" said Sir Beverley.
But Piers, with a sudden hardening of the jaw, stooped over Gracie. "Take it!" he said. "I wish it."
She looked up at him. "No, Piers; I mustn't really. It's ever so nice ofyou." She rubbed her golden head against his shoulder caressingly."Please don't be cross! I do thank you—awfully. But I don't want it.Really, I don't."
"Rot!" said Piers. "Do as I tell you! Take it!"
Gracie turned to Sir Beverley. "I can't, can I? Tell him I can't!"
But Piers was not to be thwarted. With a sudden dive he seized the coin and without ceremony swept Gracie's hair from her shoulders and dropped it down the back of her neck.
"There!" he said, slipping his hands over her arms and holding her while she squealed and writhed. "It's quite beyond reach. You can't in decency return it now. It's no good wriggling. You won't get it up again unless you stand on your head."
"You're horrid—horrid!" protested Gracie; but she reached back and kissed him notwithstanding. "Thank you ever so much. I hope I shan't lose it. But I don't know what I shall do with it all. It's quite dreadful to think of. Please don't be cross with him!" she said to Sir Beverley. "It's—awfully—kind."
Sir Beverley smiled sardonically. "And whom are the gloves for? Some other kind youth?"
"Oh no!" she laughed. "Only Aunt Avery. She tore hers all to bits this afternoon. I expect it was over a dog fight or something, but she wouldn't tell us what. They were nice gloves too. She isn't a bit rich, but she always wears nice gloves."
"Being a woman!" growled Sir Beverley.
"Don't you like women?" asked Gracie sympathetically. "I like men best too as a rule. But Aunt Avery is so very sweet. No one could help loving her, could they, Piers?"