Lady Beatrice remained until the Saturday, greatly to her husband's satisfaction and relief. He had manœuvred this arrangement with much skill, and Läo's vanity felt satisfied, and indeed gratified, by the belief that the presence of his wife was causing Gerard untold suffering and disappointment! The preliminaries of the game were so very agreeable! and when they could be prolonged by fate so that there was no fear of losing the other participant in them, nothing could be more to her taste.
Passion, like that which Katherine Bush knew, would have appeared as something absolutely shocking and horrible to her—indeed, she would have agreed with Mabel Cawber in considering it as most unladylike!
The circumstance of the Christmas night dance had left a feeling of mystery with Gerard Strobridge, which did not detract from his interest in Katherine Bush. That some strong upheaval had taken place in this strange young woman's soul he did not doubt.
But what in Heaven's name had caused it? Did it concern him?—Or was he only the medium connecting some memory?—He wished he could feel sure. Then there was the incident of his flowers; why had she worn them, and then thrown them from her as if they had burnt her?
His rather tormenting thoughts kept him too frequent company—especially as the provoking girl seemed to have retired from sight, and except on rare occasions, before everyone, he never had the chance of even a word.
Lady Garribardine's rheumatism was better, so Miss Bush had not even been required to pour out the tea.
It was with a sigh of intense relief that he returned into the hall after tucking Läo and his wife into the motor en route for London town, on Saturday morning an hour or two before lunch.
The hostess was not down to speed her parting guests; she was very much occupied in her boudoir, and they had gone thither to bid her farewell.
As Mr. Strobridge mounted the stairs, he met Katherine coming out of the room with her arms full of papers and small parcels, and a couple of big books, which she had some ado to carry.
"Let me help you," he said, eagerly—and she gave him the heavy volumes without a word.
A sense of exasperation arose in him. He would not be flouted like this! He followed her to the old schoolroom, merely remarking on the way that now all the guests, except Colonel Hawthorne, had departed, he felt there was breathing space.
Katherine seemed quite unconcerned and indifferent as to whether he did or did not; and she took his burden from him and thanked him absently, with a look towards the door evidently expecting him to go back again whence he came.
But he showed no signs of moving.
"Am I to be offered a chair on this my first call upon Miss Bush?"
"It isn't a call—you helped me to carry the books. I am very busy to-day."
"I don't care. I am here now, and I am going tostay—I shall tell my aunt how inhospitable and ungracious you are!"
"Sneak!" and she began sorting the little parcels into a row, her sullen eyes smiling. "I always hated tell-tales at school."
"So did I—but I could commit any crime to be with you. I have been tantalized all the week—Miss Bush not even seen at tea—and only glimpses of her scurrying along passages and up stairs!"
"What then do you want with Miss Bush?—Have you some more charity business to do?"
"No—The charity will be quite on the side of the fair Katherine, if she will allow a weary wayfarer to bask in the sunshine of her presence for a little while."
"Mr. Strobridge, you are talking nonsense, and I have not a moment's time to waste on you."
"I love to talk nonsense. It annoys you, and I want to see your eyes flash. I have seen them laughing—and full of pain—and snakily cold. Now I want them to flash—and then I would like them to grow tender.—They would be divine like that."
Katherine sat down and took up a pen, with a glance of withering indifference; then she began to address the labels of the packets from a list.
He came quite close to her; he was feeling a number of things.
"What a temptress you are—aren't you?—teasing me like this!"
Katherine now opened her eyes wide and stared at him, but she did not move away an inch.
"The whole thing is only in your imagination," she said, calmly. "You are a proof of my theory that personal emotion creates appearance, and hides reality."
"You understand then that I do feel emotion?"
"Why, of course. A man of your brains and cultivation could not behave in so foolish a way otherwise."
He drew back and leaned against the mantelpiece while he laughed shortly.
Katherine continued to work.
"I am merely waiting until you have finished directing those confounded parcels, which I presume are for this post—and then I am going to coax you to talk to me—May I smoke?"
"Yes, if you like—" still with lowered head.
"Won't you have a cigarette?"
"Thanks."
He handed her one from his case. She pulled a box of matches near and lit it casually, going on with her work as a boy might have done—There was no knocking off of ash or graceful movement of the hand in the fashion of Läo, who loved her white jewelled fingers to be seen to advantage.
Neither of them spoke. He might not have been in the room as far as she was concerned! He, on the contrary, was profoundly aware of her presence. Emotion such as he had not felt for years was surging through him.
She was the most damnably attractive creature, he thought, he had ever met. She awoke primitive passions, and stirred his blood. There was that intense note of reality and strength about her. She was like some dangerous lazy lioness. She made him feel that civilisation was slipping from him, and that he could willingly seize her for a jungle mate.
She, however, continued to smoke and to write for quite ten minutes, until all the parcels were addressed, and several papers examined and annotated and filed. Then she looked up. His eyes had never left her face.
"I can't think how you can stare like that," she said, with abominable matter-of-factness. "It would make me blink."
"I can enjoy looking at the sun—Now are those infernal things finished? I have been waiting with the patience of Job."
"But I can't think what for?"
"To talk to you."
"Well, talk then! I must do some typing," and she got up and went to her machine, which was on another table by the window. She knew perfectly well that she was driving him mad; it gave her a savage pleasure, and seemed a sort of balance to her own emotions on Christmas night about Algy.
He came and leant against the mantelpiece and looked down at her and quoted Dryden:
"She knows her man, and when you rant and swearCan draw you to her with a single hair."
and stretching out his hand, he touched for an instant the faint broad waves on her forehead.
And now he saw her eyes flash brilliantly enough!
"If you are going to be impertinent, Mr. Strobridge, the staircase into the garden is quite close, and the sooner you find your way to it, the better I shall be pleased."
"I would not be impertinent for the world—the temptation was overwhelming; it is so lovely, your hair—"
His voice was quite sincere, and it was not in her plan to quarrel with him.
"Very well."
"I want to hear so many things about you, child—tell me what made you come to my aunt's?—I somehow cannot ever feel that you should be in any dependent position."
"I came to educate myself—I do not mean to be dependent always—What do you do in the Foreign Office?"
He gave her a brief sketch of his days.
"Well, then," she said, "you have to do what you are told to also—nothing matters as long as the spirit is not dependent. You will be a Chief some day, I suppose?"
"Perhaps—and are you learning here?"
"Yes—and you could teach me if you liked."
"I should quite adore it—what wages should I have?"
"None."
"Then that means, by the rules of all games, that I should be working for—love——"
She shrugged her shoulders and put in another piece of paper in the typing machine. She had no intention of talking about—love——
"You are the queerest creature—you make me feel—I do not know what—Well, if you won't discuss wages—tell me what I am to teach you?"
"Literature—Do you remember a day when I came in and had coffee in the dining-room?—It was before you knew I existed—You and Her Ladyship talked of the things then which I would like you to talk to me about."
"Yes, was it not strange?—I must have been blind all those weeks."
The sphinxlike smile hovered round Katherine's mouth; it was enigmatic and horribly tantalizing. Gerard Strobridge felt a rush of wild emotion again; the temptation to seize her in his arms and passionately kiss those mocking lips almost overcame him. It isquite doubtful what might have eventuated, if at that moment he had not caught sight of old Colonel Hawthorne in the rose garden. He had come out through the same little door which Katherine used, the passage from which, on the ground floor, led to the smoking-room. He waved his hand and beckoned to Gerard.
It broke the spell, and drove some sense into the latter's head.
"Colonel Hawthorne is calling you; had not you better go and get some air?" Miss Bush suggested graciously. "It would be most beneficial, I am sure, to you, on this fine morning!"
"I daresay you are right—Well, I will go—only some day perhaps you will pay me some wages after all!"
"Is that a threat?"
"Not in the least"; he went towards the door. "Don't be cross—and when you have time will you come and see the pictures in the gallery?"
"Yes—I would love that," and her face brightened. "But you had better ask Lady Garribardine if I may."
"All right—Leave it to me—Au revoir!" and he was gone.
As he went down the stairs, he thought that it was a good idea of his aunt's to have had the smoking-room removed to this wing of the house. It had only been done that autumn, so that the shooters could go straight in if they pleased, by the side door.
Katherine did not continue her typing for a moment after she was left alone. Her brows were contracted. She was thinking deeply.
Mr. Strobridge might not be quite so easy to rule as Charlie Prodgers. She had heard that thoroughbred racers required the lightest hand, and also that there were moments when nothing would control them, neitherbridle, nor whip, nor spur. She must think out her plan of action coolly. It was necessary for what she required of him that his desire to please her should surmount all other things. At the present stage it would be difficult to get him to talk sense—but she would do her best to make him do so. This point settled, she went on with her work again undisturbed.
Gerard Strobridge found old Tom Hawthorne a tiresome companion, on their prowl round the stables, and soon escaped to his aunt's sitting-room; he must somehow arrange for Katherine to see the pictures with him after lunch.
Lady Garribardine was reading theTimeswhen he came in, and looked up delightedly. She enjoyed converse with her favourite at any hour.
They talked of many things; politics in chief. Her Ladyship's views were Tory to the backbone, but she had a speculative cynical lightness which leavened any retrogressive tendencies. Gerard often disagreed with her just to draw out her views. She loathed the Radical government. It aroused her fiercest sarcasms and contempt.
How could such a class of people, she argued, from their heredity, no matter what clever brains they had, have the right qualities in them to enable them to govern England? How could they with personal and financial axes to grind possibly concentrate honestly upon the welfare of the country above their own necessities? It was quite ridiculous in logic, whether their views were Radical or Tory. The supreme voice in the government of a country should only be in the hands of those raised by their position above all temptation for merely personal aggrandisement, so that the glory of the country could be their legitimate and undivided aim. Itcould not be that the little Mr. Browns and Greens with their parochial lawyer instincts and bitter class hatreds, greedy for their salaries and own advancement, could rise to the necessary heights of sublime prevision to enable them to see far enough ahead to have the final decision on any great question. She was all in favour of the most advanced views for the advantage and raising of the lower classes in freedom and education, no matter from which side they emanated. But she resented the pushing up of individuals totally unfit in integrity of character for the positions of authority they occupied, and who year after year were exposed as having in some way lowered the standard of honour in their office.
She would receive none such in her house.
"I eat with no one who lowers the prestige of my country in the eyes of other nations," she declared. "Making us a laughing-stock in Europe where we were once great!"
And for her that settled matters!
Mr. Strobridge coasted warily among the shoals of her opinions, and gradually got the conversation on the topic of the pictures in the gallery, some of which she really thought ought to be sent to London to be cleaned—had Gerard noticed lately?—particularly two early Italians? This was a most fortunate suggestion! Mr. Strobridge had noticed—and had meant to speak about them.
"We must have a critical examination to-day after luncheon while the light is good. One ought not to delay over such matters."
He knew incidently that his aunt was going to drive Tom Hawthorne into the town in her phaeton, to try a new pair of cobs which she had bought just beforeChristmas, and would be starting the moment that meal was finished—but he showed just the right amount of regret and surprise when she informed him of this fact.
"Never mind. I will go round alone, or better still, if you could spare Miss Bush for an hour, I will get her to make shorthand notes of what I think should be done to each picture."
Lady Garribardine looked at her nephew shrewdly; his face was innocent as a babe's.
"I believe Miss Bush would make quite an agreeable companion in a picture gallery," she remarked.
"I am sure you are perfectly right."
Then they both laughed.
"G., you won't flirt with the girl, will you, and turn her head?"
"The sad part of the affair is that it is the girl who is more likely to turn my head. Her own is far too well screwed on."
"Upon my word, I believe you! Well, then, innocent of thirty-five, don't be beguiled into idiocy by this competentséductriceof twenty-two!—If you were forty-five there would be no hope for you, but a glimmer of sanity may remain in the thirties!"
"Sheisattractive, Seraphim—and will love to see the pictures. She says she wants to learn about art and literature—and kindred things."
"And you have offered to teach her?"
Mr. Strobridge put on a modest air, while his humorous grey eyes met his aunt's merrily.
"I have applied for the post of tutor—with no salary attached."
"She won't put up with inefficiency; you will have to keep your wits at high-water mark, then."
"I feel that."
"Well, G., perhaps you deserve a treat. The Christmas entertainment I had provided for you in the way of Läo fell rather flat, did it not!"
"One grows tired of soufflé."
"Yes, but do not forget that more substantial food can cause shocking indigestion, unless partaken of with moderation."
"Heavens, Seraphim! I am no gourmand!"
"Gerard, my dear boy—you are at a stage of hunger, I fear, when intelligence may not guide discretion. You see, Nature is apt to break out after years of artificial repression."
"We are overcivilised, I admit."
At that moment, the luncheon-gong sounded and they both rose from their chairs.
Lady Garribardine slipped her fat hand into her nephew's arm, as they went down the stairs.
"G.—I leave the afternoon to you—only don't burn your fingers irretrievably; this young woman is no fool like poor Läo. I look upon her as a rather marvellous product of the twentieth century."
After lunch the two in the picture gallery passed a perfectly delightful half-hour. Mr. Strobridge had sagacity enough to know that he must stick loyally to art, and indeed after the first few minutes he found he was carried away himself, his listener was so interested, and gave such intelligent response. He almost began to believe that she had really come there to learn something; and not to flirt with himself! Her taste also surprised him, and her want of all pose.
She wrote systematically the reflections he made as to the condition of the canvases.
"It is a great thing to learn how to look at pictures," she said when they halted before a particularly primitive Madonna. "Of course I could not have seen anything to admire in this if I had come by myself, and I do not suppose that I shall ever be able really to appreciate it—except the colour—because there is something in me which likes the real so much better than the ideal; I like prose far more than poetry, for instance."
"Will you let me come up again to the schoolroom and read to you some day?"
"I should like that very much."
"I would try to make you love poetry; you are endeavouring to convince me that you are a very material young woman, you know!"
"Well, I suppose I am material. I like facts and solid things."
"And yet you spoke of dreamland once not so very long ago—do you remember!"
"Yes—but you do not know that this dreamland of mine may not be a place where wished-for facts and solid things appear realities, not fancies."
"You would not tell me if I asked you; I recollect how you eluded me before, and said it was a place which only admitted yourself."
"Even materialists must have some corner where they can be alone."
Then he questioned her.—How had she learned all that she knew?—And his interest did not diminish when she gave him a brief outline of the manner of her education.
"It was very difficult sometimes, because I never had anyone with whom to talk, and one grows one-sidedifone has only oneself to argue with, and I don't really know how to pronounce numbers of words. I should be grateful if you would tell me every time I make a mistake."
"It is quite evident that we must ratify this compact that I shall be your tutor, though I am to get no wages—even love!"
"Who would be supposed to give the love?"
Her strange eyes glanced at him provokingly for a second, and then resumed their steady look. He was quite uncertain as to whether in this there lay a challenge.—He proceeded to act as if there did.
"When I come up to give my first lesson I will tell you all about the giving—and taking—of love."
"That would be of no advantage to either of us. Love is a thing which can cause only pain."
"You are quite mistaken—it is the only divine joy in this unsatisfactory world."
Her face changed; she felt this was cruelly true—and she did not wish to be reminded of the fact.
"You shall only come to the schoolroom if you talk sense. I will not listen to a word of speculation about love; it is pure waste of time—but in any case I do not see how you can come there at all. I would not receive you without Her Ladyship's permission—it was very kind of her to let me have this afternoon."
"What a circumspect darling!"
Miss Bush looked at him with scorn.
"I am not a darlings—I am a lower middle class young woman, trying to learn how to be a lady, and whatever you think, if you want to be with me, you will have to treat me as if I had arrived at my goal already."
"I think you have, but the greatest ladies are often darlings."
"Yes, but married men do not tell them so, on very short acquaintance, Mr. Strobridge."
In his case he felt this was rather true, since he never spoke to girls at all if he could help it. He suddenly wondered in what light he really did consider her?—As an abstract and quite adorably provoking woman, he supposed.
"Is there anything else to be written down?" she asked. She had become the conventional secretary. "Because if not, I must go back to my work."
"My aunt gave me full permission to keep you for two hours. I told her all we had to do would take quite that time."
"Well, you see it has not—we have come to the end of the gallery."
"Then there is a very comfortable sofa not too far from the fire, where we could sit down and discuss what we have learned."
They walked to it. As long as he was being of some use to her Katherine Bush desired his company. So they talked uninterruptedly until dusk fell, and the footmen would soon be coming to close shutters and draw curtains.
They flitted from subject to subject, Gerard Strobridge exerting his brain to interest and amuse her, in a way that he had seldom done with Englishwomen, even of his own class. Her receptive power was exceptional, and she was completely frank. She was honestly and deeply interested in all he had to say, and the subtle flattery of this was eminently soothing. He began to take pride in his pupil. They touched upon the spirit of the Renaissance and its origin—and upon all the glorious flood of light which it brought to art and learning. He was astonished to find her so advanced in certain branches of literature, and absolutely ignorant of the names even of others—showing that it had merely been chance and no helping hand which had guided her.
"I must send you some books upon the Renaissance," he said, "if you will let me."
"That will be very kind—If I had had some master to give me an idea what to read, as a kind of basis to go upon, it would have been much better, but I had no guide—only if I saw one subject that I did not know about mentioned in what I was reading, I looked it up, but of course with really educated people there must be some plan."
"Well, shall we begin upon the Renaissance; that is rather a favourite period of mine?"
"Yes—do you not wonder if we shall ever have another?—What a lot of good it would do us, would it not?"
"Probably—some learned professors think that wemust go through a second series of dark ages first; when we shall get back to primitive ideas—and primitive passions."
"It may be,—nearly everything natural is distorted now; the world seems so tired to me, just looking on."
He stretched himself and threw out his arms—as it were to break some imaginary bonds.
"Yes—we have been coerced into false morals and manners—and we have suppressed most things which make life worth having—sometimes I envy the beasts."
"I never do that—it is only weaklings who are coerced; the strong do what they please, even in these days—but however strong a beast may be, he always finds, as Jack London shows with his wonderfulBuckin 'The Call of the Wild,' that there is invariably 'the man with the club.'"
"You mean to conquer fate, then?"
"I shall do my very best to obtain my desires, and of course shall have to pay for all my mistakes."
He looked at her curiously—had she made any mistakes? Not many, he thought, her regard was so serene, and her clever, strong face showed no vacillation. He suddenly faced the fact that he was falling in love with her, not as he had tried to do with Läo—not even as he had once succeeded in doing with Alice Southerwood, long ago. There was a quality in his present feeling which almost frightened him, it was so lawless.
She felt his eyes searching hers burningly, and rose from the sofa.
"Now I am going to have my tea—so good-bye for to-day. I have really enjoyed the pictures."
"May not I come and have tea with you? I am all alone."
"Certainly not—Martha would be scandalised. It does seem so extraordinary that I should have to tell you such things—it shows either great disrespect to me, or else—"
"What?" eagerly. He had risen, too, and was following her as she walked down the long room.
"—That you cannot help yourself."
"Yes—that is it. You have bewitched me in some way—I cannot help myself."
"Do you want all I have taken down typewritten? I can do it after tea, if so?"
"And you will sit up there all by yourself from now until you go to bed?"
"Of course."
"You must feel awfully solitary."
"Not in the least. I have books which are the most agreeable companions. They have no independent moods—you can be sure of them, and pick up those which suit yourself. Good-night."
And she turned at the bend of the great staircase from which the gallery opened, and rapidly walked on to the entrance to her passage.
He looked after her with a rapt face, and then he went discontentedly down into the library, and waited for his aunt's return.
He was extremely disturbed; it was horribly tantalizing to feel that this girl whom he was so passionately drawn to, was there in the house with him, and that he might not talk with her further, or be in her presence.
He walked up and down the room—and those who knew the casual Gerard Strobridge, cultivated, polished and self-contained, would have been greatly surprised could they have seen his agitated pacings.
Lady Garribardine had a quizzical eye when shefinally came in—how had the afternoon progressed? Her opinion of the mental balance of her secretary was exceedingly high. She felt convinced that she would know exactly how to tackle her nephew, and if Gerard desired to amuse himself he would certainly do so whether she smiled upon the affair or not!
It did strike her that he was rather a dangerous creature to be left a free hand with any young woman—and that after to-day she would see that Katherine ran no more risks from too much of his company.
The pupils of his eyes were rather dilated, she noticed; otherwise he seemed his usual self at tea—and when Colonel Hawthorne left them alone, she got him to read to her, and did not mention her secretary at all.
The afternoon had been most instructive, Katherine thought, as she ate her muffin, and looked at the papers before the old schoolroom fire. She had learned a quantity of things. Mr. Strobridge was undoubtedly a charming man, and she wondered what effect he would have had upon her if she had never met Algy? As it was he mattered no more than a chair or a table, he was just part of her game. And he was rapidly approaching the state when she could obtain complete dominion over him.
"He knows quite well that he is married and that I can never honestly be anything to him. He is only coming after me because he is attracted and is not master of his passions or his will. If he is a weakling he must pay the price—I shall not care! He is not thinking in the least as to whether or no it will hurt me—he is only thinking of himself, just like Bob Hartley, only he is a gentleman and therefore does not make any hypocritical promises to try to lure me."
And then she laughed softly. "Well, whatever comesis on his own head, I need have no mercy upon him!"
So she calmly finished her tea and wrote to Matilda whose excited letter with the family news of Gladys' secret marriage she had not yet replied to. Gladys had written her a little missive also—full of thanks for her part in the affair. Bob was being rather rude and unkind to her about it, she said, but it was not altogether his fault, because on Christmas night he had had rather too much to drink, and had been quarrelsome for two days since. She was going to keep the expected event from being known as long as possible, and then she supposed they would go and live somewhere together. It would be wretched poverty and struggle, and she was miserable, but at least she felt an "honest woman," and could not be grateful enough to her sister for bringing this state of things about. Katherine stared into the fire while she thought over it all. It seemed to her too astonishing that a woman should prefer a life tied to a man who was reluctant to keep her—his drudge and the object of his scorn—to one of her own arranging in America, perhaps—along with the child, but free. Gladys had sufficient talent in her trade to have earned good wages anywhere, and must have enough money saved, could she have got it from Matilda's fond guardian clutches, to have tided over the time. But weaklings must always suffer and be other people's slaves and tools. Poor Gladys! Then she fell to thinking of Algy—why was he haunting her? For the first month the complacent satisfaction from the conquest of self had upheld her splendidly, but now the pain felt as keen as on the first day of separation.
She would crush it.
Except on the path coming out of church she had no words with Mr. Strobridge on the morrow—and thenit was only a few sentences of ordinary greeting. Lady Garribardine claimed his entire attention. She did see him from the window, smoking a cigar in the rose garden in the afternoon, whither he had come from the smoking-room. She deliberately let him catch sight of her, as she stood there, and she marked the look of eager joy on his face, and then she moved away and did not appear again.
So the Monday arrived—the last day of the old year.
Lady Garribardine was having no party for it as was her usual custom; her rheumatism was rather troublesome, and she stayed in the house all the day, up in her boudoir, where Katherine was in constant attendance.
Gerard and Colonel Hawthorne were out rabbiting with the keepers in the park, and only came in to tea.
Katherine found her mistress rather exacting and difficult to please, and she felt tired and cross—so it gave her some kind of satisfaction to be as provoking as possible when she was ordered to pour out the tea for the shooters in the sitting-room. She remained perfectly silent, but every now and then allowed her magnetic eyes to meet Mr. Strobridge's with the sphinxlike smile in them.
On his side Gerard had found the hours hell.—He knew he was now madly in love with this exasperating girl, and that she was exercising the most powerful attraction upon him.
He gazed at her as she sat there, white and sensuous-looking, her red lips pouting, and her grey-green eyes full of some unconscious challenge, and gradually wild excitement grew in his blood.
As soon as her actual duties were over, Katherine said respectfully:
"If Your Ladyship has no more need of me, I must get some letters finished before the post goes."
And when a nod of assent was given, she quietly left the room.
So Gerard Strobridge knew he would see her no more that night; and there would be a boring dinner with the parson, and his wife and daughter, to be got through, and on the morrow he was returning to town!
For the first time in their lives he felt resentful towards his aunt. That Seraphim should not have been more sympathetic, and have made some opportunity for him to talk again to Katherine, was quite too bad!
She, who usually understood all his moods and wants! Her silence upon the subject of her secretary, ever since her return from that drive, was ominous, now that he thought about it. Evidently he need hope for no further coöperation from her, and because he was feeling so deeply, he could not act in the casual and intelligent way to secure his ends which he would have used on other occasions. So the incredibly wearisome evening passed. The guests left early, and Lady Garribardine went gladly to bed, leaving her nephew and Colonel Hawthorne to drink in the New Year together—the New Year of 1912.
But the old gentleman was fatigued with his day's shooting and when half-past eleven came he was glad to slink off to his friendly couch.
Thus Gerard was alone.
He lit a cigar and stretched himself in a huge leather armchair, an untouched drink close at hand.
The house was quite silent. He had told Bronson that he would put out the lights in the smoking-room when they left. No one was about and not a breath of wind stirred a tree outside.
He sat there for some minutes—and then his heart began to beat violently.
Whose was that soft footfall directly overhead? With the departure of the grandchildren from the old nurseries there was no one left in the wing but Katherine Bush!
All sorts of visions came to him; she had not yet gone to bed—perhaps she, too, was waiting for the New Year?
He got up and listened, his pulses bounding so that he seemed to hear his heart thumping against his side.
There was the sound again!
It was not to be endured. Fierce emotion shook him, and at last all restraint fell from him, and passion became lord.
Then he extinguished the lights and softly crept up the stairs.
Katherine had that instant removed her dressing-gown after the brushing of her hair, which now hung in two long plaits. She was in the act of slipping into bed. The carpet in the passage was thick, and she heard no sounds, so that the first thing which startled her was the actual opening of the door of her room, which it had not been her custom to lock.
For one second a blind terror shook her, and then all her nerve and resource returned. She stood there magnificent in her anger and resentment. She had no female instinct instantly to seize the dressing-gown to cover herself. She stood straight up in her cheap nainsook nightgown, all the beautiful lines of her tall, slender figure showing in the soft shaded light.
Gerard Strobridge was like a man drunk with wine. His eye flamed and he trembled with excitement. The bed, a small old wooden one, was between them with a writing-table at the foot. So that to reach her he must go round by the fire.
This he did, while he whispered hoarsely:
"Katherine—I love you—madly—I had to come to you, darling girl!" Then he stopped within a few feet of her, literally sobered by the expression of her face. It showed not an atom of fear—rather the proud contempt of an empress ordering the death of a presuming slave.
She did not speak for a moment; she seemed to drawup to her full height, and even to grow taller; she was only an inch or two less than himself. And if the scorn of eyes could kill, he would have lain there dead.
"Darling!" he cried, and went forward to take her in his arms.
She stepped back only one step and spoke at last, her deep tones low.
"If you dare to touch me, I will kill you—I am not afraid of you, you know—You are only a beast, after all—and I am the man with the club."
"Beautiful fiend!"—but he hesitated—He was no coward, and cared not a jot for her threats, only his fastidiousness was assailed by the thought of a struggling, fighting woman in his embrace, when he had come there for—Love! It would be wiser, perhaps, to cajole her. He was too intoxicated with passion to realise that it would also seem more dignified!
"Katherine, do not be so horribly unkind, darling girl! I love you wildly, I tell you, and I want you to be mine."
"What for?" She was perfectly calm still, and never moved from her place.
"That we may be happy, you sweet thing. I want to hold you in my arms and caress you, and make us both forget that there is anything else in the whole wide world but our own two selves!"
And exalted by this enchanting picture, he drew a little closer and held out his hands.
"I tell you plainly—if you come one step nearer to me, you do so at your own risk. I will tear the flesh from your face with my nails, and strangle you." Her voice was absolutely deadly in its icy intentness. "I am not weak, and I despise your mean action in coming here to-night too greatly to have any fear."
The breeding in him responded to this sting.
"My mean action—!" but his voice faltered a little, and she interrupted him before he could argue further.
"Yes—I am a dependent in your aunt's house here, earning my living, and you chance my being disgraced and sent away for your own shamefully selfish ends. Indeed, you are teaching me the lesson of the depth to which an aristocrat can sink."
He drew back, and some of the fire died out of him. Her words cut him like a knife, but he was too overwrought with emotion yet to give in and leave her.
"Katherine—my darlings—forgive me!" he cried, brokenly. "I admit I am mad with love, but you shall never suffer for it—give yourself to me, and I will take you away from all drudgery. You shall have a house where you like. I will protect you and teach you all you desire to know. You shall lead an intellectual life worthy of your brain. We can travel in Italy and France, and I shall worship and adore you—Katherine, my sweet!"
The tones of his cultivated voice vibrated with deep feeling, and he looked all that was attractive as he stood there in his faultless evening clothes, pleading to her as though he were but a humble suppliant for grace, and she a queen.
But Katherine was not in the least touched, although her awakened critical faculties realised fully the agreeable companion he would probably make as a lover, with his knowledge of the world, and his polished homage to women. There was something fierce and savagely primitive at this moment in her faithfulness to Algy. For all the strongly sensuous side of her nature, any other man's caresses appeared revolting to her. It wasthe man, notmen, who could arouse her passionate sensibility.
"You ask me to be your mistress, then—is that it?" her voice was coldly level, like one discussing a business proposition.
His whole face lit up again—there was hope perhaps after all.
"Of course, darling—What else?"
"It is an insult—but I am not concerned with that point. My views are perhaps not orthodox. I am merely interested in my side of the affair, which is that I have not the slightest wish for the post. I will be no man's mistress—do you hear?"
"Katherine, can I not make you love me, sweet?"
She laughed softly. It was a dangerous sound, ominous as that which a lioness might make when she purrs.
"Not if you stayed on your knees for a thousand years! I have loved one man in my life with the kind of love which you desire—I know exactly what it means, and probably I shall never love another in that way—I sacrificed him for my idea. I had will enough to leave him, feeling for him what perhaps you feel for me. So do you think, then, that you could move me in the least!—You whom I do not love, but—despise!"
All this time, she stood there utterly desirable in her thin raiment, which she had never sought to cover. Indeed, now that she saw that she was going to win the game, she took joy that he should understand what he had lost, so that his punishment should be the more complete: there was nothing pitiful or tender about Katherine Bush. Her strange, strong character had no mercy for a man who had shown her that he was not master of himself—above all things, she admired self-control.
Gerard Strobridge suffered, as she spoke, as perhaps he had never done in his life before. If he had been one whit less of a gentleman, he would not now have conquered himself; he would have seized her in his arms, and made her pay for her scalding words. The effect of tradition for centuries, however, held him even beyond the mad longing which again thrilled through his blood as he looked at her.
He flung himself into the armchair and buried his head in his hands.
"My God!" he cried, hoarsely, "how you can torture—can you not? I knew when I watched you in church that you could be cruel as the grave—but I thought to-day when you looked at me there in my aunt's sitting-room, that to me perhaps you meant to be kind; your face is the essence of passion—it would deceive any man."
"Then it is well that you should be undeceived—and that we should understand one another. What did you think you would gain by coming here to-night?—My seduction? And some pleasure for yourself." She was horribly scornful again. "You never thought of me—It does not matter what my personal views are about such relations; you do not know them, and I do not believe that I have given you reason to think that you might treat me with want of respect; but your action shows that you do not respect me, I can only presume, because of my dependent position, and because you despise my class—since you would certainly not have behaved so to any of your aunt's guests."
He writhed a little at her taunt, and his face was haggard now as he looked up at her.
"There is no use in my asking you to forgive me—but it is not true that I do not respect you, or that Ihave acted as I have for the reason that I despise your class—That is a hateful thought. I came here to-night because I am a man—and was simply mad with longing for you after the tantalization of the last two days, and never being able to speak a word to you." His breath came rather fast, and he locked together his hands. "I love you—I would have come had you been the highest lady in the land. My action was not premeditated—it was yielding to a sudden strong temptation because I was sitting there in the smoking-room thinking of you, and I heard the noise of your soft footfall overhead, and suddenly all the furious passion in me would no longer be denied and cried out for you!"
He rose and came over to her, and sitting down on the edge of the bed, he held out his arms to her in supplication. "It swept away all the civilisation in me. Nature breaks asunder all barriers in the best of us at times—and you are so adorably dear—Katherine—darling—I have done this thing, and now it is too late for me to plead for your pardon—but I love you more wildly than I have ever loved a woman in my life.—You could make me your slave, Katherine, if you would only give yourself to me. I would chase away the memory of that other and teach you all the divine things of love there are to learn in life."
She moved and stood by the fireplace. She was shivering a little, half from cold.
"I forbid you to say another word on this subject," she said gravely, but with less of her former scorn. "Neither you nor any other man could rob me of the memory of my once dear lover—but I would rather not hate you—so I appeal to that part of you that I still think is a gentleman to go at once out of my room."
He followed her to the fire almost overcome again bythe picture she presented in her straight thin garment, virgin white and plain. He wildly desired to unplait that thick soft hair and bury his face in it—he longed to hold her to his heart. But he restrained himself.
There was complete silence for a second or two, and then across the park in the church tower, midnight pealed, tolling the dying year.
They both lifted their heads to listen, unconsciously counting the strokes, and then when the last one struck, and the joyous bells rang out, something in their sound melted the anger and contempt in Katherine's soul. She looked at him, his refined, distinguished face very pale and utterly dejected now. And the broad-minded, level-headed judgment which she brought to bear on all matters told her that she had no right to great anger and made her realise for the first time that she was actually to blame perhaps for this situation having developed since she had not sufficiently considered what might be the possible result of arresting a man's attention through the eyes and ears.
"Listen," she said gently, holding out her beautiful hand. "Here is the New Year—I do not want to begin it with any hard thoughts—After all, I understand you—and I forgive you. I believe I have been in some measure to blame. I cannot ever be your love—but I am very lonely—won't you be my true knight and friend?"
She had touched the deepest chord of his being. The tears sprang to his fine grey eyes; he knelt down upon the rug and bent and kissed her knees.
"Indeed, I will—I swear it, darling—And whatever suffering it brings to me, I will never make you regret your sweet forgiveness of me, and your resumed trust in me to-night."
She leaned forward, and for an instant smoothed his thick brown hair in blessing.
He took her hands and kissed the palms, and then without another word, he rose and went towards the door. There he turned and looked at her, standing in the firelight, the dark oak-panelled room only lit by the one small electric-shaded lamp by the bed. He looked and looked, as though his famished eyes must surfeit themselves with the vision. It was fair enough to see!
And then he noiselessly quitted the room and went on down the stairs to the smoking-room as silently as he had come.
The months went by. It was Easter time before Katherine Bush again saw Gerard Strobridge. He went off to Egypt about the middle of January, and Lady Garribardine was up in London for a few days alone before he left seeing her grandchildren off. Katherine missed him, and unconsciously his influence directed her studies. She remembered isolated sentences that he had used in their talk that day in the picture gallery. He had certainly shown a delightfully cultivated mind, and she wished that things had not reached a climax so soon between them. She regretted deeply that she had caused him any pain and determined never to deviate from loyal friendship so that he should have no cause to suffer further. He had not forgotten about the books, and she was now the proud possessor of several volumes on the Renaissance, including, of course, Symonds and Pater. They opened yet another door in her imagination, and on days when she was not very busy, she would wander in the picture gallery and go over all the examples of the Italian masters again and again, and try to get the atmosphere of the books.
Lady Garribardine watched her silently for the first few weeks after her nephew went, without increasing their intimacy. Her shrewd mind was studying Katherine, to make sure that she had made no mistake about her. Such a very deep creature might have sides which would make her regret having dropped the reservewhich, accompanied by a high-handed kindliness, she showed to all her dependents.
The great event of New Year's day had been the advent of the grey wig so beautifully arranged with her ladyship's own snow-white hair, that the whole thing seemed growing together! With her dark, sparkling eyes and jet brows, she now looked an extremely handsome old lady; and Katherine who did not see her until the afternoon when they were alone, was unable to keep a faint, almost inaudible "Ah!" of admiration from escaping, when she first saw her. She was furious with herself and bit her lip, but Lady Garribardine smiled.
"You would say something, Miss Bush? Pray speak."
Katherine coloured a little; she felt this was one of those slips which she very seldom made, but frankness being always her method, she answered quietly:
"I only thought how beautiful Your Ladyship looked—just like the Nattier in the gallery."
"You find my grey locks an improvement, then?"
"Oh, yes!"
"The Nattier was an ancestress of mine.—A French entanglement of a great great-grandfather, which ended, as these affairs are seldom fortunate enough to do, in a marriage all correct with the church's blessing—the husband being most conveniently killed in a duel with another man!—So the then d'Estaire brought her here to Blissington, where she was shockingly bored, poor thing! and died a year or two after producing an heir for him. When I was young, I always went to fancy balls as the charming creature—it is amusing that you see the likeness even now."
"It is very striking."
"I always felt a great pity for her—transplantedfrom Versailles and all the joys of the Court, to this quiet, English home—Have you ever read Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, girl?"
Katherine had not.
"Well, then, you had better read them; there is a good edition in the library. They are, you will find, the most instructive things in English literature. If I had had a son, I would have brought him up upon them. I was reminded of them now by thinking of my twice great-grandmother. Chesterfield always quotes the French nobles of that date as thene plus ultraof good breeding, and rather suggests that the Englishmen were often boors or blockheads. So although d'Estaire may have satisfied her, the general company could not have done so, one feels."
"I would like to see Versailles," Katherine ventured to remark.
"You will some day—I may go to Paris after Easter—one must have clothes."
Katherine realised this necessity—her own wardrobe would require replenishing by the springtime, but she had not dreamed of Paris.
Her immediate action after this was to get from the library the Chesterfield Letters, the reading of which she always afterwards looked back upon as being the second milestone in her career. She devoured them, and learned countless advantageous lessons of the world therefrom. The first and chief being the value of graciousness and good manners. She now began to realise that her own were too sullen and abrupt, and a marked change in them was soon perceivable to anyone who would have cared to notice. This was during the time when she was still only on probation in her employer's favour, but it was not lost upon that astute lady;nothing ever escaped her eagle eye. And she often smiled to herself quietly when she watched the girl.
Now and then they would go up to the London house for a few days and "picnic," as Her Ladyship called it, which meant taking only her personal footman to wait on her, and a maid or two for the house. Katherine went with her nearly always, and was sent shopping and allowed to go and see her family, if she wished.
But she did not wish, and always met Matilda at some place for tea. The gulf between them was growing wider and wider, and while Katherine was far more agreeable than of old, Matilda stood in much greater awe of her.
She felt, although she would not have owned it for the world, that her sister had really gone into another class, and she was not quite comfortable with her. Katherine seemed to look more stately and refined each time, and Matilda gloried and grieved in secret over it.
Gladys accompanied her on one occasion.
"I suppose Kitten will be marrying one of them gentlemen, some day," Matilda said on the way home to Laburnum Villa. "You'd never know she wasn't someone tip-top now, would you, Glad?"
"No—she is quite like any of our 'real thing' lot who came into Ermantine's—they're dowdy, but you'd know they were it."
"Well, I hope she'll be happy." Matilda sighed doubtfully.
"Yes, she will," Gladys returned a little bitterly. "Katherine would never do anything to get herself into a mess; she is quite just, and she can be awfully kind—but she looks to the end of things and doesn't care a rush for anyone but sticks to what she wants herself. I tell you what, Tild, I used to hate her—but I don'tnow—I respect Katherine. She is so perfectly true."
"She seems to talk different, don't you notice, Glad?"
"She always did—but now more than ever; she is like our best lot—I suppose she did learn something extra at those evening classes she was so fond of?"
Matilda shook her head regretfully.
"I never did hold to them—she'd have been happy at home now and engaged to Charlie Prodgers all comfortable, but for that nonsense."
"Oh! but, Tild, I expect what she has got is better even than that."
"What! to be a grand lady's servant, Glad! My! I'd far rather be Mrs. Prodgers, junior, a lady myself, and keep my own general! Mabel's forever saying Katherine can't be anything but a slave—And Mabel knows—her cousin's aunt's daughter who married that gentleman with the large city business was presented at Court!"
But Mrs. Bob Hartley only sighed. Life was growing particularly grim for her just now. She felt horribly ill, and had to stand about all day, and conceal every sensation to keep up the appearances that all was fair.
Katherine reflected deeply upon the moral of the situation, after her sisters had left her. What martyrs many women were in life! and what hideous injustice it all seemed—and more than ever she saw how merciless nature is to weaklings.
About three weeks before Easter, Lady Garribardine was alone down at Blissington; she had lately taken to having her secretary with her sometimes on her frequent visits to her cottagers.
She would start in a rough, short suit, and a pair of thick boots, with a serviceable walking-stick, and wouldtramp for miles carrying a basket, in which were sweets and medicines. She was worshipped by her people, arrogant, commanding, kindly great lady!
On one of these occasions they had the motor to meet them at the end of the home village, and drove six or seven miles to another in her outlying property.
She was very gracious as they went along.
"What books have you been reading lately, girl? If they are the Chesterfield Letters I think I may tell you that you have profited by them. Your manners generally are greatly improved."
Katherine reddened with pleasure.
"I have read them over and over again. I have found them more instructive to me than any other book."
"In my young days they were considered highly immoral and pernicious, by most of the canting Victorian hypocrites—when, of course, everyone of the world knew that Chesterfield's advice on all points was the most sensible and sagacious that could be given—but hypocrisy had risen to a colossal height in the sixties and seventies."
"I suppose so."
"Nowadays not one person in ten thousand reads them, more's the pity. If the young men with their great personal beauty—which sport and suitable feeding have produced—could have been brought up to understand the advantage of cultivating 'the graces,' what godlike creatures they would be!"
Katherine thought of Lord Algy; he must have done so unconsciously, she felt.
"People are so apt to judge such a book upon the letter, not the spirit—naturally one must make allowances for the different customs and habits of the times; but the spirit of the advice adapted to modern requirementswould make any man or woman into an eminent person if it was faithfully followed. I recommend it to you strongly, since I believe you are steadily trying to educate yourself, Miss Bush."
"I am, indeed—I hope I am not overconfident in believing that if one probes the meaning of everything, and can see the faults in oneself, including those of instinct, it is possible to do, by will, what only the evolution of centuries accomplishes by natural process. The Chesterfield Letters have encouraged me in my belief."
"Of course, it is possible, but people will hardly ever face the truth, and would not dream of examining their own instincts; it would wound their self-love; they would rather be mediocre and blinded to their stupidities, than teach themselves any useful lesson. Your determined effort interests me deeply, child."
Katherine turned a radiant face of gratitude; this was praise indeed!
"I will do all I can to merit Your Ladyship's goodness to me."
"No, I am not good—I have no altruistic or humanitarian proclivities—I would not bother with you for five minutes if you were not so intelligent that I have grown to take a kind of pride in you."
"I can't say how I appreciate Your Ladyship's kindness."
Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her for a second, and then she said slowly:
"I am going to ask you a question not strictly justifiable—and you need not answer it if you would rather not—but you may have formed some opinion of my integrity in these months, which will perhaps allow you to be frank with me—Did my nephew, Gerard Strobridge, make violent love to you when he spent Christmas with us? It seemed to me at the time, and afterwards, that he grew considerably depressed."
Katherine felt a twinge of distress.
"Mr. Strobridge showed some interest in me which I felt it wiser to discourage—He was very kind to me though, and agreed to be my friend, and sent me some books."
For a second, Lady Garribardine felt irritated. Her precious Gerard to have been a suppliant to this dependent in her house!—And then the broad justice of her nature regained its mastery; the girl was worthy of the homage of a king.
"I think he must have been extremely hard hit—I am quite devoted to him, as you know. I rely upon you not to hurt him more than you can help, when he comes back."
"I never wished to hurt him at all—I did wish to talk to him, though, because he is so clever, so at first I was glad to attract his attention. I know now that that was wrong."
Lady Garribardine looked at her secretary critically. She was astonished at this frank avowal which she realised not another woman in a million in Katherine's situation would have made.
"You deliberately attracted him then, girl, eh?——" her voice was stern.
"Yes—on the afternoon he first spoke to me when we typed the charity papers. I was so anxious to learn about books and art, and before that he had not noticed me at all."
"You did not calculate that it might hurt him?"
Lady Garribardine wondered at herself that she did not feel angry.
"No. I never thought about that—he seemed olderand of the world, and able to take care of himself, and he was married."
"None of which things ever saved a man when Eve offered the apple—I suppose I ought to be very annoyed with you, child—but I believe it has done him good; he wanted rousing, he is, as you say, so clever.
"He could have done brilliantly, but he is lacking in perseverance—If he had married a woman like you, he would have risen to great things. The finest gift of God is an indomitable purposeto do. My nephew drifted, I fear."
Then their talk branched off to other things, and this proud old aristocrat, having made up her mind now once for all that Katherine possessed a character and qualities after her own heart, she from this day treated her as an equal and a valued companion whenever they were not in actual relation of employer and secretary; when in that, she would always resume her original aloof manner of one in command.
Katherine delighted in thisnuance, and appreciated the subtle tribute to her own sense of the fitness of things, and never once took the ell when she was given the inch, showing in this the immeasurable distance she had risen above her class.
And so Easter came, and with it a large party—and Gerard Strobridge. At first sight, he did not appear at all changed. Katherine saw him from the window of the schoolroom just at sunset on the Thursday afternoon, when the guests arrived. He was walking in the rose garden with a tall, beautiful woman. The lowering globe of fire was making a blaze of reflected light from striking the row of mullioned windows of the picture gallery on the opposite side, and the flower-beds were a mass of daffodils and hyacinths. It was a nice background. He looked up, so Katherine saw his face plainly—then she stepped behind the curtain and the pair went on.
She felt very glad to see him, and wondered when they would meet. At these huge parties she never came down, even to pour out the tea if Her Ladyship's hand ached, as at the smaller family Christmas one. So unless he made the chance deliberately, it was quite possible no words would be exchanged.
This uncertainty added to the interest, and made her decide when Sunday should come to take especial pains with her appearance for church—Under Gladys' direction, she would be most simply and charmingly garbed, in a new blue serge suit, and becoming black hat. Before Saturday when they actually met, however, she had seen Gerard twice, once from the gallery as she was leaving Lady Garribardine's sitting-room, and he was talking to the same beautiful lady in the hall—and once from her window when he paced the rose garden alone.
Katherine was familiar with the names and characteristics of all the guests, for had she not written their invitations and read their answers? Did she not type the cards which slipped into the little plates on their doors, and those for their places at dinner?—And on Saturday night a message came for her that she was to print two more, and go immediately to Bronson with a fresh arrangement of the table, as two extra men were going to turn up by motor at the last moment, guardsmen quartered at Windsor.
She was coming from the dining-room down the passage which led to her staircase, and also the smoking-room, when Gerard emerged from there, and met her at the foot of the stairs.
He put out his hand with cordial friendliness, while he cried gaily:
"At last I can greet you!—I would not go to dress on purpose, because I saw you rush down the passage, and I knew you would have to come back—It is good to see you again!"
She answered suitably and would have passed on, only he barred the way.
"I thought you were going to let me be a friend," he said reproachfully, "and here you snub me at once and want to run away."
"No—but you will be late."
"I care not a jot!—When can I possibly see you to-morrow?"
His eyes began to grow hungry; he was taking in the subtle improvement in her—which had happened even in these few months. His interest in her had not diminished, he discovered, much as he had hoped that he had crushed it to within bounds.
"I cannot say—in church, I suppose."
"That is small comfort! May I not come up the stairs just for half an hour before lunch?"
"Yes, if you find it possible—remember, I trust you not to do anything unwise."
"I promise—if you prefer it, I will ask my aunt's permission."
"Do as you think best—but now I must go. Good-night!"