"Of course not," said Duane. He glanced at the miserable, snivelling, twitching creature by the fire: "Do you think he'll get over this, or will he buy another pistol the next time he gets the jumps?"
Grandcourt looked troubled:
"I don't know what this breed is likely to do. He's absolutely no good. He's the only person in the world that is left of the family—except his sister. He's all she has had to look out for her—a fine legacy, a fine prop for her to lean on. That's the sort of protection she has had all her life; that's the example set her in her own home. I don't know what she's done; it's none of my business; but, Duane, I'm for her!"
"So am I."
They stood together in silence for a moment; maudlin sniffles of self-pity arose from the corner by the fire, alternating with more hysterical and more ominous sounds presaging some spasmodic crisis.
Grandcourt said: "Bunny Gray has helped me kennel this pup once or twice. He's in the club; I think I'll send for him."
"You'll need help," nodded Duane. "I'll call up the hospital on my way to the station. Good-bye, Delancy."
They shook hands and parted.
At the station Duane telephoned to the hospital, got Dr. Bailey, arranged for a room in a private ward, and had barely time to catch his train—in fact, he was in such a hurry that he passed by without seeing the sister of the very man for whom he had been making such significant arrangements.
She wore, as usual, her pretty chinchilla furs, but was so closely veiled that he might not have recognised her under any circumstances. She, however, forgetting that she was veiled, remained uncertain as to whether his failure to speak to her had been intentional or otherwise. She had halted, expecting him to speak; now she passed on, cheeks burning, a faint sinking sensation in her heart.
For she cared a great deal about Duane's friendship; and she was very unhappy, and morbid and more easily wounded than ever, because somehow it had come to her ears that rumour was busily hinting things unthinkable concerning her—nothing definite; yet the very vagueness of it added to her distress and horror.
Around her silly head trouble was accumulating very fast since Jack Dysart had come sauntering into her youthful isolation; and in the beginning it had been what it usually is to lonely hearts—shy and grateful recognition of a friendship that flattered; fascination, an infatuation, innocent enough, until the man in the combination awoke her to the terrors of stranger emotions involving her deeper and deeper until she lost her head, and he, for the first time in all his career, lost his coolly selfish caution.
How any rumours concerning herself and him had arisen nobody could explain. There never is any explanation. But they always arise.
In their small but pretty house, terrible scenes had already occurred between her and her brother—consternation, anger, and passionate denial on her part; on his, fury, threats, maudlin paroxysms of self-pity, and every attitude that drink and utter demoralisation can distort into a parody on what a brother might say and do.
To escape it she had gone to Tuxedo for a week; now, fear and foreboding had brought her back—fear intensified at the very threshold of the city when Duane seemed to look straight at her and pass her by without recognition. Men don't do that, but she was too inexperienced to know it; and she hastened on with a heavy heart, found a taxi-cab to take her to the only home she had ever known, descended, and rang for admittance.
In these miserable days she had come to look for hidden meaning even in the expressionless faces of her trained servants, and now she misconstrued the respectful smile of welcome, brushed hastily past the maid who admitted her, and ran upstairs.
Except for the servants she was alone. She rang for information concerning her brother; nobody had any. He had not been home in a week.
Her toilet, after the journey, took her two hours or more to accomplish; it was dark at five o'clock and snowing heavily when tea was served. She tasted it, then, unable to subdue her restlessness, went to the telephone; and after a long delay, heard the voice she tremblingly expected:
"Is that you, Jack?" she asked.
"Yes."
"H-how are you?"
"Not very well."
"Have you heard anything new about certain proceedings?" she inquired tremulously.
"Yes; she's begun them."
"On—on w-what grounds?"
"Not on any grounds to scare you. It will be a Western matter."
Her frightened sigh of relief turned her voice to a whisper:
"Has Stuyve—has a certain relative—annoyed you since I've been away?"
"Yes, over the telephone, drunk, as usual."
"Did he make—make any more threats, Jack?"
"The usual string. Where is he?"
"I don't know," she said; "he hasn't been home in a week, they tell me. Jack, do you think it safe for you to drop in here for a few moments before dinner?"
"Just as you say. If he comes in, there may be trouble. Which isn't a good idea, on your account."
No woman in such circumstances is moved very much by an appeal to her caution.
"But I want to see you, Jack," she said miserably.
"That seems to be the only instinct that governs you," he retorted, slightly impatient. "Can't you ever learn the elements of prudence? It seems to me about time that you substituted common sense for immature impulse in dealing with present problems."
His voice was cold, emotionless, unpleasant. She stood with the receiver at her ears, flushing to the tips of them under his rebuke. She always did; she had known many, recently, but the quick pang of pain was never any less keen. On the contrary.
"Don't you want to see me? I have been away for ten days."
"Yes, I want to see you, of course, but I'm not anxious to spring a mine under myself—under us both by going into your house at this time."
"My brother has not been here in a week."
"Does that accidental fact bar his possible appearance ten minutes from now?"
She wondered, vaguely, whether he was afraid of anything except possible damage to her reputation. She had, lately, considered this question on several occasions. Being no coward, as far as mere fear for her life was concerned, she found it difficult to attribute such fear to him. Indeed, one of the traits in her which he found inexplicable and which he disliked was a curious fearlessness of death—not uncommon among women who, all their lives, have had little to live for.
She said: "If I am not worth a little risk, what is my value to you?"
"You talk like a baby," he retorted. "Is an interview worth risking a scandal that will spatter the whole town?"
"I never count such risks," she said wearily. "Do as you please."
His voice became angry: "Haven't I enough to face already without hunting more trouble at present? I supposed I could look to you for sympathy and aid and common sense, and every day you call me up and demand that I shall drop everything and fling caution to the winds, and meet you somewhere! Every day of the year you do it——"
"I have been away ten days—" she faltered, turning sick and white at the words he was shouting through the telephone.
"Well, it was understood you'd stay for a month, wasn't it? Can't you give me time to turn around? Can't you give me half a chance? Do you realise what I'm facing?Doyou?"
"Yes. I'm sorry I called you; I was so miserable and lonely——"
"Well, try to think of somebody besides yourself. You're not the only miserable person in this city. I've all the misery I can carry at present; and if you wish to help me, don't make any demands on me until I'm clear of the tangle that's choking me."
"Dear, I only wanted to help you—" she stammered, appalled at his tone and words.
"All right, then, let me alone!" he snarled, losing all self-command. "I've stood about all of this I'm going to, from you and your brother both! Is that plain? I want to be let alone. That is plainer still, isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. Her face had become deathly white; she stood frozen, motionless, clutching the receiver in her small hand.
His voice altered as he spoke again:
"Don't feel hurt; I lost my temper and I ask your pardon. But I'm half crazy with worry—you've seen to-day's papers, I suppose—so you can understand a man's losing his temper. Please forgive me; I'll try to see you when I can—when it's advisable. Does that satisfy you?"
"Yes," she said in a dull voice.
She put away the receiver and, turning, dropped onto her bed. At eight o'clock the maid who had come to announce dinner found her young mistress lying there, clenched hands over her eyes, lying slim and rigid on her back in the darkness.
When the electric lamps were lighted she rose, went to the mirror and looked steadily at herself for a long, long time.
She tasted what was offered, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; later, in her room, a servant came saying that Mr. Gray begged a moment's interview on a matter of importance connected with her brother.
It was the only thing that could have moved her to see him. She had denied herself to him all that winter; she had been obliged to make it plainer after a letter from him—a nice, stupid, boyish letter, asking her to marry him. And her reply terminated the attempts of Bunbury Gray to secure a hearing from the girl who had apparently taken so sudden and so strange an aversion to a man who had been nice to her all her life.
They had, at one time, been virtually engaged, after Geraldine Seagrave had cut him loose, and before Dysart took the trouble to seriously notice her. But Bunny was youthful and frisky and his tastes were catholic, and it did not seem to make much difference that Dysart again stepped casually between them in his graceful way. Yet, curiously enough, each preserved for the other a shy sort of admiration which, until last autumn, had made their somewhat infrequent encounters exceedingly interesting. Autumn had altered their attitudes; Bunny became serious in proportion to the distance she put between them—which is of course the usual incentive to masculine importunity. They had had one or two little scenes at Roya-Neh; the girl even hesitated, unquietly curious, perplexed at her own attitude, yet diffidently interested in the man.
A straw was all that her balance required to incline it; Dysart dropped it, casually. And there were no more pretty scenes between Bunny Gray and his lady-love that autumn, only sulks from the youth, and, after many attempts to secure a hearing, a very direct and honest letter that winter, which had resulted in his dismissal.
She came down to the drawing-room, looking the spectre of herself, but her stillness and self-possession kept Bunny at his distance, staring, restless, amazed—all of which very evident symptoms and emotions she ignored.
"I have your message," she said. "Has anything happened to my brother?"
He began: "You mustn't be alarmed, but he is not very well——"
"I am alarmed. Where is he?"
"In the Knickerbocker Hospital."
"Seriously ill?"
"No. He is in a private ward——"
"The—alcoholic?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," he said, flushing with the shame that had not burnt her white face.
"May I go to him?" she asked.
"No!" he exclaimed, horrified.
She seated herself, hands folded loosely on her lap:
"What am I to do, Bunny?"
"Nothing.... I only came to tell you so that you'd know. To-morrow if you care to telephone Bailey——"
"Yes; thank you." She closed her eyes; opened them with an effort.
"If you'll let me, Sylvia, I'll keep you informed," he ventured.
"Would you? I'd be very glad."
"Sure thing!" he said with great animation; "I'll go to the hospital as many times a day as I am allowed, and I'll bring you back a full account of Stuyve's progress after every visit.... May I, Sylvie?"
She said nothing. He sat looking at her. He had no great amount of intellect, but he possessed an undue proportion of heart under the somewhat striking waistcoats which at all times characterised his attire.
"I'm terribly sorry for you," he said, his eyes very wide and round.
She gazed into space, past him.
"Do you—would you prefer to have me go?" he stammered.
There was no reply.
"Because," he said miserably, "I take it that you haven't much use for me."
No word from her.
"Sylvie?"
Silence; but she looked up at him. "I haven't changed," he said, and the healthy colour turned him pink. "I—just—wanted you to know. I thought perhaps you might like to know——"
"Why?" Her voice was utterly unlike her own.
"Why?" he repeated, getting redder. "I don't know—I only thought you might—it might—amuse you—to know that I haven't changed——"
"As others have? Is that what you mean, Bunny?"
"No, no, I didn't think—I didn't mean——"
"Yes, you did. Why not say it to me? You mean that you, and others, have heard rumours. You mean that you, unlike others, are trying to make me understand that you are still loyal to me. Is that it?"
"Y-yes. Good Lord! Loyal! Why, of course I am. Why, you didn't suppose I'd be anything else, did you?"
She opened her pallid lips to speak and could not.
"Loyal!" he repeated indignantly. "There's no merit in that when a man's been in love with a girl all his life and didn't know it until she'd got good and tired of him! You know I'm for you every time, Sylvia; what's the game in pretending you didn't know it?"
"No game.... I didn't—know it."
"Well, you do now, don't you?"
Her face was colourless as marble. She said, looking at him: "Suppose the rumour is true?"
His face flamed: "You don't know what you are saying!" he retorted, horrified.
"Suppose it is true?"
"Sylvia—for Heaven's sake——"
"Suppose itistrue," she repeated in a dead, even voice; "how loyal would you remain to me then?"
"As loyal as I am now!" he answered angrily, "if you insist on my answering such a silly question——"
"Is that your answer?"
"Certainly. But——"
"Are yousure?"
He glared at her; something struck coldly through him, checking breath and pulse, then releasing both till the heavy beating of his heart made speech impossible.
"I thought you were not sure," she said.
"Iamsure!" he broke out. "Good God, Sylvia, what are you doing to me?"
"Destroying your faith in me."
"You can't! I love you!"
She gave a little gasp:
"The rumouristrue," she said.
He reeled to his feet; she sat looking up at him, white, silent hands twisted on her lap.
"Now you know," she managed to say. "Why don't you go? If you've any self-respect, you'll go. I've told you what I am; do you want me to speak more plainly?"
"Yes," he said between his teeth.
"Very well; what do you wish to know?"
"Only one thing.... Do you—care for him?"
She sat, minute after minute, head bent, thinking, thinking. He never moved a muscle; and at last she lifted her head.
"No," she said.
"Could you care for—me?"
She made a gesture as though to check him, half rose, fell back, sat swaying a moment, and suddenly tumbled over sideways, lying a white heap on the rug at his feet.
As his train slowed down through the darkness and stopped at the snow-choked station, Duane, carrying suit-case, satchel, and fur coat, swung himself off the icy steps of the smoker and stood for a moment on the platform in the yellow glare of the railway lanterns, looking about him.
Sleigh-bells sounded near—chiming through the still, cold air; he caught sight of two shadowy restive horses, a gaily plumed sleigh, and, at the same moment, the driver leaned sideways from her buffalo-robed seat, calling out to him by name.
"Why, Kathleen!" he exclaimed, hastening forward. "Did you really drive down here all alone to meet me?"
She bent over and saluted him, demure, amused, bewitchingly pretty in her Isabella bear furs:
"I really did, Duane, without even a groom, so we could talk about everything and anything all the way home. Give your checks to the station agent—there he is!—Oh, Mr. Whitley, would you mind sending up Mr. Mallett's trunks to-night? Thank yousomuch. Now, Duane, dear——"
He tossed suit-case and satchel into the sleigh, put on his fur coat, and climbing up beside Kathleen, burrowed into the robes.
"I tell you what," he said seriously, "you're getting to be a howling beauty; not just an ordinary beauty, but a miracle. Do you mind if I kiss you again?"
"Not after that," she said, presenting him a fresh-curved cheek tinted with rose, and snowy cold. Then, laughing, she swung the impatient horses to the left; a jingling shower of golden bell-notes followed; and they were off through the starlight, tearing northward across the snow.
"Duane!" she said, pulling the young horses down into a swift, swinging trot, "whatdo you think! Geraldine doesn't know you're coming!"
"Why not?" he asked, surprised. "I telegraphed."
"Yes, but she's been on the mountain with old Miller for three days. Three of your letters are waiting for her; and then came your telegram, and of course Scott and I thought we ought to open it."
"Of course. But what on earth sent Geraldine up the Golden Dome in the dead of winter?"
Kathleen shook her pretty head:
"She's turned into the most uncontrollable sporting proposition you ever heard of! She's up there at Lynx Peak camp, with her rifle, and old Miller. They're after that big boar—the biggest, horridest thing in the whole forest. I saw him once. He's disgusting. Scott objected, and so did I, but, somehow, I'm becoming reconciled to these break-neck enterprises she goes in for so hard—so terribly hard, Duane! and all I do is to fuss a little and make a few tearful objections, and she laughs and does what she pleases."
He said: "It is better, is it not, to let her?"
"Yes," returned Kathleen quietly, "it is better. That is why I say very little."
There was a moment's silence, but the constraint did not last.
"It's twenty below zero, my poor friend," observed Kathleen. "Luckily, there is no wind to-night, but, all the same, you ought to keep in touch with your nose and ears."
Duane investigated cautiously.
"My features are still sticking to my face," he announced; "is it really twenty below? It doesn't seem so."
"It is. Yesterday the thermometers registered thirty below, but nobody here minds it when the wind doesn't blow; and Geraldine has acquired the most exquisite colour!—and she's so maddeningly pretty, Duane, and actually plump, in that long slim way of hers.... And there's another thing; she ishappierthan she has been for a long, long while."
"Has that fact any particular significance to you?" he asked slowly.
"Vital!... Do you understand me, Duane, dear?"
"Yes."
A moment later she called in her clear voice: "Gate, please!" A lantern flashed; a door opened in the lodge; there came a crunch of snow, a creak, and the gates of Roya-Neh swung wide in the starlight.
Kathleen nodded her thanks to the keeper, let the whip whistle, and spent several minutes in consequence recovering control of the fiery young horses who were racing like scared deer. The road was wide, crossed here and there by snowy "rides," and bordered by the splendid Roya-Neh forests; wide enough to admit a white glow from myriads of stars. Never had Duane seen so many stars swarming in the heavens; the winter constellations were magnificent, their diamond-like lustre silvered the world.
"I suppose you want to hear all the news, all the gossip, from three snow-bound rustics, don't you?" she asked. "Well, then, let me immediately report a most overwhelming tragedy. Scott has just discovered that several inconsiderate entomologists, who died before he was born, all wrote elaborate life histories of the Rose-beetle. Isn't it pathetic? And he's workedsohard, and he's been like a father to the horrid young grubs, feeding them nice juicy roots, taking their weights and measures, photographing them, counting their degraded internal organs—oh, it is too vexing! Because, if you should ask me, I may say that I've been a mother to them, too, and it enrages me to find out that all those wretched, squirming, thankless creatures have been petted and studied and have had their legs counted and their Bertillon measurements taken years before either Scott or I came into this old fraud of a scientific world!"
Duane's unrestrained laughter excited her merriment; the star-lit woodlands rang with it and the treble chiming of the sleigh-bells.
"What on earth will he find to do now?" asked Duane.
"He's going to see it through, he says. Isn't it fine of him? There is just a bare chance that he may discover something that those prying entomological people overlooked. Anyway, we are going to devote next summer to studying the parasites of the Rose-beetle, and try to find out what sort of creatures prey upon them. And I want to tell you something exciting, Duane. Promise you won't breathe one word!"
"Not a word!"
"Well, then—Scott was going to tell you, anyway!—wethink—but, of course, we are not sure by any means!—but we venture to think that we have discovered a disease which kills Rose-beetles. We don't know exactly what it is yet, or how they get it, but we are practically convinced that it is a sort of fungus."
She was very serious, very earnest, charming in her conscientious imitation of that scientific caution which abhors speculation and never dares assert anything except dry and proven facts.
"What are you and Scott aiming at? Are you going to try to start an epidemic among the Rose-beetles?" he inquired.
"Oh, it's far too early to even outline our ideas——"
"That's right; don't tell anything Scott wants to keep quiet about! I'll never say a word, Kathleen, only if you'll take my advice, feed 'em fungus! Stuff 'em with it three times a day—give it to them boiled, fried, au gratin, à la Newburg! That'll fetch 'em!... How is old Scott, anyway?"
"Perfectly well," she said demurely. "He informs us daily that he weighs one hundred and ninety pounds, and stands six feet two in his snow-shoes. He always mentions it when he tells us that he is going to scrub your face in a snow-drift, and Geraldine invariably insists that he isn't man enough. You know, as a matter of fact, we're all behaving like very silly children up here. Goodness knows what the servants think." Her smiling face became graver.
"I am so glad that matters are settled and that there's enough of your estate left to keep your mother and Naïda in comfort."
He nodded. "How is Scott coming out?"
"Why—he'll tell you. I don't believe he has very much left. Geraldine's part is sufficient to run Roya-Neh, and the house in town, if she and Scott conclude to keep it. Old Mr. Tappan has been quite wonderful. Why, Duane, he's a perfect old dear; and we all are so terribly contrite and so anxious to make amends for our horrid attitude toward him when he ruled us with an iron rod."
"He's a funny old duck," mused Duane. "That son of his, Peter, has had the 'indiwidool cultiwated' clean out of him. He's only a type, like Gibson's drawings of Tag's son. Old Tappan may be as honest as a block of granite, but it's an awful thing that he should ever have presided over the destinies of children."
Kathleen sighed. "According to his light he was faithful. I know that his system was almost impossible; I had to live and see my children driven into themselves until they were becoming too self-centred to care for anything else—to realise that there was anything else or anybody else except their wishes and themselves to consider.... But, Duane, you see the right quality was latent in them. They are coming out—they have emerged splendidly. It has altered their lives fundamentally, of course, but, sometimes, I wonder whether, in their particular cases, it was not better to cripple the easy, irresponsible, and delightfully casual social instincts of the House of Seagrave. Educated according to my own ideas, they must inevitably have become, in a measure, types of the set with which they are identified.... And the only serious flaw in the Seagraves was—weakness."
Duane nodded, looking ahead into the star-illumined night.
"I don't know. Tappan's poison may have been the antidote for them in this case. Tell me, Kathleen, has Geraldine—suffered?"
"Yes."
"Very—much?"
"Very much, Duane. Has she said nothing about it to you in her letters?"
"Nothing since she went to town that time. Every letter flies the red cross. Does she still suffer?"
"I don't think so. She seems so wonderfully happy—so vigorous, in such superb physical condition. For a month I have not seen that pitiful, haunted expression come into her eyes. And it is not mere restlessness that drives her into perpetual motion now; it's a new delight in living hard and with all her might every moment of the day!... She overdoes it; you will turn her energy into other channels. She's ready for you, I think."
They drove on in silence for a few minutes, then swung into a broader avenue of pines. Straight ahead glimmered the lights of Roya-Neh.
Duane said naïvely: "I don't suppose I could get up to Lynx Peak camp to-night, could I?"
Kathleen threw back her head, making no effort to control her laughter.
"It isn't necessary," she managed to explain; "I sent a messenger up the mountain with a note to her saying that matters of importance required her immediate return. She'll come down to-night by sleigh from The Green Pass and Westgate Centre."
"Won't she be furious?" he inquired, with a hypocritical side glance at Kathleen, who laughed derisively and drew in the horses under the porte-cochère. A groom took their heads; Duane swung Kathleen clear to the steps just as Scott Seagrave, hearing sleigh-bells, came out, bareheaded, his dinner-jacket wide open, as though he luxuriated in the bitter air.
"Good work!" he said. "How are you, Duane? Geraldine arrived from The Green Pass about five minutes ago. She thinks you're sleighing, Kathleen, and she's tremendously curious to know why you want her."
"She probably suspects," said Kathleen, disappointed.
"No, she doesn't. I began to talk business immediately, and I know she thinks that some of Mr. Tappan's lawyers are coming. So they are—next month," he added with a grin, and, turning on Duane:
"I think I'll begin festivities by washing your face in the snow."
"You're not man enough," remarked the other; and the next moment they had clinched and were swaying and struggling all over the terrace, to the scandal of the servants peering from the door.
"He's tired and half frozen!" exclaimed Kathleen; "what a brute you are to bully him, Scott!"
"I'll include you in a moment," he panted, loosing Duane and snatching a handful of snow. Whereupon she caught up sufficient snow to fill the hollow of her driving glove, powdered his face thoroughly with the feathery flakes, picked up her skirt and ran for it, knowing full well she could expect no mercy.
Duane watched their reckless flight through the hall and upstairs, then walked in, dropped his coat, and advanced across the heavy rugs toward the fireplace.
On the landing above he heard Geraldine's laughter, then silence, then her clear, careless singing as she descended the stairs:
"Lisetto quittée la plaine,Moi perdi bonheur à moi—Yeux à moi semblent fontaineDepuis moi pas miré toi!"
At the doorway she halted, seeing a man's figure silhouetted against the firelight. Then she moved forward inquiringly, the ruddy glow full in her brown eyes; and a little shock passed straight through her.
"Duane!" she whispered.
He caught her in his arms, kissed her, locked her closer; her arms sought his head, clung, quivered, fell away; and with a nervous movement she twisted clear of him and stood breathing fast, the clamour of her heart almost suffocating her. And when again he would have drawn her to him she eluded him, wide-eyed, flushed, lips parted in the struggle for speech which came at last, brokenly:
"Dear, you must not take me—that way—yet. I am not ready, Duane. You must give me time!"
"Time! Is anything—has anything gone wrong?"
"No—oh, no, no, no! Don't you understand I must take my own time? I've won the right to it; I'm winning out, Duane—winning back myself. I must have my little year of self-respect. Oh,can'tyou understand that you mustn't sweep me off my feet this way?—that I'm too proud to go to you—have you take me while there remains the faintest shadow of risk?"
"But I don't care! I want you!" he cried.
"I love you for it; I want you, Duane. But be fair to me; don't take me until I am as clean and straight and untainted as the girl I was—as I am becoming—as I will be—surely, surely—my darling!"
She caught his hands in hers and, close to him, looked into his eyes smilingly, tearfully, and a little proudly. The sensitive under-lip quivered; but she held her head high.
"Don't ask me to give you what is less perfect than I can make it. Don't let me remember my gift and be ashamed, dear. There must be no memory of your mistaken generosity to trouble me in the years to come—the long, splendid years with you. Let me always remember that I gave you myself as I really can be; let me always know that neither your love nor compassion were needed to overlook any flaw in what I give."
She bent her proud little head and laid her lips on his hands, which she held close between her own.
"You can so easily carry me by storm, Duane; and in your arms I might be weak enough to waver and forget and promise to give you now what there is of me if you demanded it. Don't ask it; don't carry me out of my depth. There is more to me than I can give you yet. Let me wait to give it lest I remember your unfairness and my humiliation through the years to come."
She lifted her lips to his, offering them; he kissed her; then, with a little laugh, she abandoned his hands and stepped back, mocking, tormenting, enjoying his discomfiture.
"It's cruel, isn't it, you poor lamb! But do you know the year is already flying very, very fast? Do you think I'm not counting the days?"—and, suddenly yielding—"if you wish—if you truly do wish it, dear, I will marry you on the very day that the year—my year—ends. Come over here"—she seated herself and made a place for him—"and you won't caress me too much—will you? You wouldn't make me unhappy, would you?... Why, yes, I suppose that I might let you touch me occasionally.... And kiss me—at rare intervals.... But not—as we have.... You won't, will you? Then you may sit here—a little nearer if you think it wise—and I'm ready to listen to your views concerning anything on earth, Duane, even including love and wedlock."
It was very hard for them to judge just what they might or might not permit each other—how near it was perfectly safe to sit, how long they might, with impunity, look into each other's eyes in that odd and rather silly fashion which never seems to be out of date.
What worried him was the notion that if she would only marry him at once her safety was secured beyond question; but she explained very sweetly that her safety was almost secured already; that, if let alone, she was at present in absolute command of her fate, mistress of her desires, in full tide of self-control. Now all she required was an interval to develop character and self-mastery, so that they could meet on even ground and equal terms when the day arrived for her to surrender to him the soul and body she had regained.
"I suppose it's all right," he said with a sigh, but utterly unconvinced. "You always were fair about things, and if it's your idea of justice to me and to yourself, that settles it."
"You dear old stupid!" she said, tenderly amused; "it is the best thing for our future. The 'sphere of influence' and the 'balance of power' are as delicate matters to adjust in marriage as they are in world-politics. You're going to be too famous a painter for your wife to be anything less than a thorough woman."
She drew a little away from him, bent her head and clasped both hands around her knee.
"There is another reason why I should be in autocratic command over myself when we marry.... It is difficult for me to explain to you.... Do you remember that I wrote you once that I was—afraid to marry you—notfor our own sakes?"
Her young face was grave and serious; she bent her gaze on her ringless fingers.
"That," she said, "is the most vital and—sacred reason of all."
"Yes, dear." He did not dare to touch her, scarcely dared look at the pure, thoughtful profile until she lifted her head and her fearless eyes sought his.
And they smiled, unembarrassed, unafraid.
"Those people are deliberately leaving us here to spoon," she declared indignantly. "I know perfectly well that dinner was announced ages ago!" And, raising her voice: "Scott, you silly ninny! Where in the world are you?"
Scott appeared with alacrity from the library, evidently detained there in hunger and impatience by Kathleen, who came in a moment later, pretty eyes innocently perplexed.
"I declare," she said, "it is nine o'clock and dinner is supposed to be served at eight!" And she seemed more surprised than ever when old Howker, who evidently had been listening off stage, entered with reproachful dignity and announced that ceremony.
And it was the gayest kind of a ceremony, for they ate and chattered and laughed there together as inconsequentially as four children, and when Howker, with pomp and circumstance, brought in a roast boar's head garnished with holly-like crimson elder, they all stood up and cheered as though they really liked the idea of eating it. However, there was, from the same animal, a saddle to follow the jowl, which everybody tasted and only Scott really liked; and, to Duane's uneasy surprise, great silver tankards of delicious home-brewed ale were set at every cover except Geraldine's.
Catching his eye she shrugged slightly and smiled; and her engaging glance returned to him at intervals, reassuring, humorously disdainful; and her serenely amused smile seemed to say:
"My dear fellow, please enjoy your ale. There is not the slightest desire on my part to join you."
"That isn't a very big wild boar," observed Scott, critically eyeing the saddle.
"It's a two-year-old," admitted Geraldine. "I only shot him because Lacy said we were out of meat."
"Youkilled him!" exclaimed Duane.
She gave him a condescending glance; and Scott laughed.
"She and Miller save this establishment from daily famine," he said. "You have no idea how many deer and boar it takes to keep the game within limits and ourselves and domestics decently fed. Just look at the heads up there on the walls." He waved his arm around the oak wainscoting, where, at intervals, the great furry heads of wild boar loomed in the candlelight, ears and mane on end, eyes and white sabre-like tusks gleaming. "Those are Geraldine's," he said with brotherly pride.
"I want to shoot one, too!" said Duane firmly. "Do you think I'm going to let my affianced put it all over me like that?"
"Isn'tit like a man?" said Geraldine, appealing to Kathleen. "They simply can't endure it if a girl ventures competition——"
"You talk like a suffragette," observed her brother. "Duane doesn't care how many piglings you shoot; he wants to go out alone and get that old grandfather of all boars, the one which kept you on the mountain for the last three days——"
"Myboar!" she cried indignantly. "I won't have it! I won't let him. Oh, Duane,amI a pig to want to manage this affair when I've been after him all winter?—and he's the biggest, grayest, wiliest thing you ever saw—a perfectly enormous silvery fellow with two pairs of Japanese sabre-sheaths for tusks and a mane like a lion, and a double bend in his nose and——"
Shouts of laughter checked her flushed animation.
"Of course I'm not going to sneak out all alone and pot your old pig," said Duane; "I'll find one for myself on some other mountain——"
"But I want you to shoot with me!" she exclaimed in dismay. "I wanted you to see me stalk this boar and mark him down, and have you kill him. Oh, Duane, that was the fun. I've been saving him, I really have. Miller knows that I had a shot once—a pretty good one—and wouldn't take it. I killed a four-year near Hurryon instead, just to save that one——"
"You're the finest little sport in the land!" said Duane, "and we are just tormenting you. Of course I'll go with you, but I'm blessed if I pull trigger on that gentleman pig——"
"Youmust! I've saved him. Scott, make him say he will! Kathleen, this is really too annoying! A girl plans and plans and pictures to herself the happiness and surprise she's going to give a man, and he's too stupid to comprehend——"
"Meaning me!" observed Duane. "But I leave it to you, Scott; a man can't do such a thing decently——"
"Oh, you silly people," laughed Kathleen; "you may never again see that boar. Denman, keeper at Northgate when Mr. Atwood owned the estate, told me that everybody had been after that boar and nobody ever got a shot at him. Which," she added, "does not surprise me, as there are some hundred square miles of mountain and forest on this estate, and Scott is lazy and aging very fast."
"By the way, Sis, you say you got a four-year near The Green Pass?"
She nodded, busy with her bon-bon.
"Was it exciting?" asked Duane, secretly eaten up with pride over her achievements and sportsmanship.
"No, not very." She went on with her bon-bon, then glanced up at her brother, askance, like a bad child afraid of being reported.
"Old Miller is so fussy," she said—"the old, spoilt tyrant! He is really very absurd sometimes."
"Oho!" said Scott suspiciously, "so Miller is coming to me again!"
"He—I'm afraid he is. Did you," appealing to Kathleen, "ever know a more obstinate, unreasoning old man——"
"Geraldine! What did you do!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," said Scott, annoyed, "what the deuce have you been up to now? Miller is perfectly right; he's an old hunter and knows his business, and when he comes to me and complains that you take fool risks, he's doing his duty!"
He turned to Duane:
"That idiot girl," he said, nodding toward his abashed sister, "knocked over a boar last month, ran up to look at his tusks, and was hurled into a snowdrift by the beast, who was only creased. He went for Miller, too, and how he and my sister ever escaped without a terrible slashing before Geraldine shot the brute, nobody knows.... There's his head up there—the wicked-looking one over the fireplace."
"That's not good sportsmanship," said Duane gravely.
Geraldine hung her head, colouring.
"I know it; I mean to keep cool; truly, I do. But things happen so quickly——"
"Why are you afraid Miller is going to complain?" interrupted her brother.
"Scott—it wasn't anything very much—that is, I didn't think so. You'd have done it—you know it's a point of honour to track down wounded game."
She turned to Duane:
"The Green Pass feeding-ground was about a thousand yards ahead in the alders, and I made Miller wait while I crept up. There was a fine boar feeding about two hundred yards off, and I fired and he went over like a cat in a fit, and then up and off, and I after him, and Miller after me, telling me to look out."
She laughed excitedly, and made a little gesture. "That's just why I ran—to look out!—and the trail was deep and strong and not much blood-dust. I was so vexed, so distressed, because it was almost sunset and the boar seemed to be going strongly and faster than a grayhound. And suddenly Miller shouted something about 'scrub hemlock'—I didn't know he meant for me to halt!—So I—I"—she looked anxiously at her brother—"I jumped into the scrub and kicked him up before I knew it—and he—he tore my kilts—just one or two tears, but it didn't wound me, Scott, it only just made my leg black and blue—and, anyway, I got him——"
"Oh, Lord," groaned her brother, "don't you know enough to reconnoitre a wounded boar in the scrub?Idon't know why he didn't rip you. Do you want to be killed by apig? What's the use of being all cut and bitten to pieces, anyway?"
"No use, dear," she admitted so meekly that Duane scarcely managed to retain his gravity.
She came over and humbly slipped her arm through his as they all rose from the table.
"Don't think I'm a perfect idiot," she said under her breath; "it's only inexperience under excitement. You'll see that I've learned a lot when we go out together. Miller will admit that I'm usually prudent, because, two weeks ago, I hit a boar and he charged me, and my rifle jammed, and I went up a tree! Wasn't that prudent?"
"Perfectly," he said gravely; "only I'd feel safer if you went up a tree in the first place and remained there. What a child you are, anyway!"
"Do you know," she confided in him, "I am a regular baby sometimes. I do the silliest things in the woods. Once I gave Miller the slip and went off and built a doll's house out of snow and made three snow dolls and played with them! Isn't that the silliest thing? And another time a boar came out by the Westgate Oaks, and he was a black, hairy fellow, and so funny with his chin-whiskers all dotted with icicles that I began to say aloud:
'I swear by the beardOn my chinny-chin-chin—'
And of course he was off before I could pull trigger for laughing. Isn't that foolish?"
"Adorably," he whispered. "You are finding the little girl in the garden, Geraldine."
She looked up at him, serious, wistful.
"It's the boy who found her; I only helped. But I want to bring her home all alone."
The weather was unsuitable for hunting. It snowed for a week, thawed over night, then froze, then snowed again, but the moon that night promised a perfect day.
Young Mallett supposed that he was afoot and afield before anybody else in house could be stirring, but as he pitched his sketching easel on the edges of the frozen pasture brook, and opened his field-box, a far hail from the white hill-top arrested him.
High poised on the snowy crest above him, clothed in white wool from collar to knee-kilts, and her thick clustering hair flying, she came flashing down the hill on her skis, soared high into the sunlight, landed, and shot downward, pole balanced.
Like a silvery meteor she came flashing toward him, then her hair-raising speed slackened, and swinging in a widely gracious curve she came gliding across the glittering field of snow and quietly stopped in front of him.
"Since when, angel, have you acquired this miraculous accomplishment?" he demanded.
"Do I do it well, Duane?"
"A swallow from paradise isn't in your class, dear," he admitted, fascinated. "Is it easy—this new stunt of yours?"
"Try it," she said so sweetly that he missed the wickedness in her smile.
So, balancing, one hand on his shoulder, she disengaged her moccasins from the toe-clips, and he shoved his felt timber-jack boots into the leather loops, and leaning on the pointed pole which she handed him, gazed with sudden misgiving down the gentle acclivity below. She encouraged him; he listened, nodding his comprehension of her instructions, but still gazing down the hill, a trifle ill at ease.
However, as skates and snow-shoes were no mystery to him, he glanced at the long, narrow runners curved upward at the extremities, with more assurance, and his masculine confidence in all things masculine returned. Then he started, waved his hand, smiling his condescension; then he realised that he was going faster than he desired to; then his legs began to do disrespectful things to him. The treachery of his own private legs was most disheartening, for they wavered and wobbled deplorably, now threatening to cross each other, now veering alarmingly wide of his body. He made a feebly desperate attempt to use his trail-pole; and the next second all that Geraldine could see of the episode was mercifully enveloped in a spouting pinwheel of snow.
Like all masculine neophytes, he picked himself up and came back, savagely confident in his humiliation. She tried to guide his first toddling ski-steps, but he was mad all through and would have his own way. With a set and mirthless smile, again and again he gave himself to the slope and the mercy of his insurgent legs, and at length, bearing heavily on his trail-pole, managed to reach the level below without capsizing.
She praised him warmly, rescued his wool gloves and cap from snowy furrows into which their owner had angrily but helplessly dived; and then she stepped into her skis and ascended the hill beside him with that long-limbed, graceful, swinging stride which he had ventured to believe might become him also.
He said hopelessly: "If you expect me to hunt wild boar with you on skis, there'll be some wild and widely distributed shooting in this county. How can I hit a boar while describing unwilling ellipses in mid-air or how can I run away from one while I'm sticking nose down in a snow-drift?"
Too faint with laughter to reply, she stood leaning on her trailing-pole and looking over his shoulder as he repitched his sketching easel, squeezed the colours from the leaden tubes, and set his palette.
"I'm horribly hungry," he grumbled; "too hungry to make a decent sketch. How cold is it, anyway? I believe that this paint is trying to freeze on my palette!"
"What are you going to paint?" she asked, her rounded chin resting on his shoulder.
"That frozen brook." He looked around at her, hesitating; and she laughed and nodded her comprehension.
"You want to make a sketch of me, dear. Why don't you ask me? Do you think I'd refuse?"
"It's so beastly cold to ask you to stand still——"
"Cold! Why, it's much warmer; it's ten above zero. I'll stand wherever you wish. Where do you want me; here above you, against the snow and sky?"
The transcendent loveliness of the picture she made set that excited thrill quivering through every vein; but he took a matter-of-fact grip on his emotions because good work is done in cold blood, even if it sometimes may be conceived in exaltation.
"Don't move," he said serenely; "you are exactly right as you stand. Tell me the very moment you feel cold. Promise?"
"Yes, dear."
His freezing colours bothered him, and at times he used them almost like pastels. He worked rapidly, calmly, and with that impersonal precision that made every brush stroke an integral factor in the ensemble.
At almost any stage of the study the accidental brilliancy of his progress might have been terminated abruptly, leaving a sketch rarely beautiful in its indicated and unfinished promise.
But the pitfalls of the accidental had no allurements for him. She rested, changed position, stretched her limbs, took a long circle or two, skimming the hillside when she needed the reaction. But always she came swinging back again to stand and watch her lover with a half-smiling, half-tender gaze that tried his sangfroid terribly when he strove to catch it and record it in the calm and scientific technique which might excite anybody except the workman.
"Am I pretty, Duane?"
"Annoyingly divine. I'm trying not to think of it, dear, until my hand and heart may wobble with impunity. Are you cold?"
"No.... Do you think you'll make a full-fledged picture from this motive?"
"How did you guess?"
"I don't know. I've a premonition that your reputation is going to soar up like a blazing star from this waste of snow around us.... I wish—I wish that it might be from me, through me—my humble aid—that your glory breaks out——"
"If it ever does, it will do it through you. I told you that long ago."
"Yes."
"I've known it a long, long time, Geraldine. Without you there's nothing to me except surface. You are the depths of me."
"And you of me, Duane." Sweet eyes remote, she stood looking into space; at peace with her soul, dreaming, content. And it was then that he caught and imprisoned in colour the nameless beauty which was the foundation for his first famous picture, whose snowy splendour silenced all except those little critics who chirp automatically, eternally, on the ruddy hearthstone of the gods.
From the distant hill-top a voice bellowed at them through a megaphone; and, looking aloft, they beheld Scott gesticulating.
"If you two mental irresponsibles want any breakfast," he shouted, "you'd better hustle! Miller telephones that the big boar fed below Cloudy Mountain at sunrise!"
Geraldine looked at her lover, cheeks pink with excitement. He was immensely interested, too, and as soon as he could fold his easel, lock up brushes and palette, protect his canvas with a fresh one faced with cork buffers, they started for the house, discussing the chances for a shot that afternoon.
Like the most desirable and wary of most species of game, furry or finny, the huge, heavily tusked veterans of the wild-boar family often feed after dark, being too cunning to banquet by daylight and carouse with the gayer blades and the big, fierce sows of the neighbourhood.
Sometimes in the white gloom of snow-storms there is a chance for a shot; sometimes in a remoter fastness a big boar may deem himself secure enough to venture out where there are no witnesses to his solitary gastronomic revels save an Arctic owl or two huddled high in the hemlocks.
And it was in the rocky oak-ridges of the wild country under Cloudy Mountain that Miller had marked down the monarch of all wild pigs—the great, shaggy, silver-tipped boar, hock-deep in snow, crunching frozen acorns and glaring off over the gully where mile after mile of white valley and mountain ranges stretched away, clotted and streaked with pine.
"Why don't we all go?" asked Geraldine, seating herself behind the coffee-urn and looking cordially around at the others.
"Because, dear," said Kathleen, "I haven't the slightest desire to run after a wild boar or permit him to amble after me; and all that reconciles me to your doing it is that Duane is going with you."
"I personally don't like to kill things," observed Scott briefly. "My sister is the primitive of this outfit. She's the slayer, the head hunter, the lady-boss of this kraal."
"Is it very horrid of me, Duane?" she asked anxiously, "to find excitement in this sort of thing? Besides, we do need meat, and the game must be kept thinned down by somebody. And Scott won't."
"Whatever you do is all right," said Duane, laughing, "even when you jeer at my gymnastics on skis. Oh, Lord! but I'm hungry. Scott, are you going to take all those sausages and muffins, you bespectacled ruffian! Kathleen, heave a plate at him!"
Kathleen was too scandalised to reply; Scott surrendered the desired muffins, and sorted the morning mail, which had just been brought in.
"Nothing for you, Sis, except bills; one letter for Duane, two for Kathleen, and the rest for me"—he examined the envelopes—"all from brother correspondents and eager aspirants for entomological honours.... Here's your letter, Duane!" scaling it across the table in spite of Kathleen's protest.
They had the grace to ask each other's permission to read.
"Oh, listen to this!" exclaimed Scott gleefully:
"Dear Sir: Your name has been presented to the Grand Council which has decided that you are eligible for membership in the International Entomological Society of East Orange, N.J., and you have, therefore, been unanimously elected."Have the kindness to inform me of your acceptance and inclose your check for $25, which includes your dues for five years and a free subscription to the society's monthly magazine,The Fly-Paper——"
"Dear Sir: Your name has been presented to the Grand Council which has decided that you are eligible for membership in the International Entomological Society of East Orange, N.J., and you have, therefore, been unanimously elected.
"Have the kindness to inform me of your acceptance and inclose your check for $25, which includes your dues for five years and a free subscription to the society's monthly magazine,The Fly-Paper——"
"Scott, don't do it. You get one of those kind of things every day!" exclaimed Geraldine. "They only want your $25, anyway."
"It's an innocent recreation," grinned Duane. "Why not let Scott append to his signature—'M.I.E.S.E.O.N.J.'—Member International Entomological Society, East Orange, New Jersey. It only costs $25 to do it——"
"That's all right," said Scott, reddening, "but possibly they may have read my paper on the Prionians in the last YonkersMagazine of Science. It wasn't a perfectly rotten paper, was it, Kathleen?"
"It was mighty clever!" she said warmly. "Don't mind those two scoffers, Scott. If you take my advice you will join this East Orange Society. That would make six scientific societies he has joined since Christmas," she continued, turning on Duane with severe pride; adding, "and there's a different coloured ribbon decoration for his buttonhole from each society."
But Duane and Geraldine were very disrespectful; they politely offered each other memberships in all sorts of societies, including one yard of ribbon decoration, one sleigh-bell, and five green trading stamps, until Scott hurled an orange at Duane, who caught it and blew a kiss at him as recompense.
Then they went outside, on Scott's curt invitation, and wrestled and scuffled and scrubbed each other's faces with snow like schoolboys, until, declaring they were hungry again, they came back to the breakfast-room and demanded more muffins and sausages and coffee.
Kathleen rang and, leaning over, handed Geraldine a brief letter from Rosalie Dysart:
"Do you think Geraldine would ask me up for a few days?" it began. "I'm horribly lonesome and unhappy and I'm being talked about, and I'd rather be with you wholesome people than with anybody I know, if you don't mind my making a refuge of your generosity. I'm a real victim of that dreadful sheet in town, which we all have a contempt for and never subscribe to, and which some of us borrow from our maids or read at our modistes—the sheet that some of us are genuinely afraid of—and part of our fear is that it may neglect us! You know, don't you, what really vile things it is saying about me? If you don't, your servants do."So if you'd rather not have me, I won't be offended, and, anyway, you are dear and decent people and I love you."Rosalie Dene."
"Do you think Geraldine would ask me up for a few days?" it began. "I'm horribly lonesome and unhappy and I'm being talked about, and I'd rather be with you wholesome people than with anybody I know, if you don't mind my making a refuge of your generosity. I'm a real victim of that dreadful sheet in town, which we all have a contempt for and never subscribe to, and which some of us borrow from our maids or read at our modistes—the sheet that some of us are genuinely afraid of—and part of our fear is that it may neglect us! You know, don't you, what really vile things it is saying about me? If you don't, your servants do.
"So if you'd rather not have me, I won't be offended, and, anyway, you are dear and decent people and I love you.
"Rosalie Dene."
"How funny," mused Geraldine. "She's dropped Jack Dysart's name already in private correspondence.... Poor child!" Looking up at Kathleen, "We must ask her, mustn't we, dear?"
There was more of virginal severity in Kathleen. She did not see why Rosalie, under the circumstances, should make a convenience of Geraldine, but she did not say so; and, perhaps, glancing at the wistful young girl before her, she understood this new toleration for those in dubious circumstances—comprehended the unusual gentleness of judgment which often softens the verdict of those who themselves have drifted too near the danger mark ever to forget it or to condemn those still adrift.
"Yes," she said, "ask her."
Duane looked up from the perusal of his own letter as Kathleen and Scott strolled off toward the greenhouses where the latter's daily entomological researches continued under glass and the stimulous artificial heat and Kathleen Severn.
"Geraldine," he said, "here's a letter from Bunny Gray. He and Sylvia Quest were married yesterday very quietly, and they sailed for Cape Town this morning!"
"What!"
"That's what he writes. Did you ever hear of anything quicker?"
"How funny," she said. "Bunny and Sylvia? I knew he was attentive to her but——"
"You mean Dysart?" he said carelessly. "Oh, he's only a confirmed débutante chaser; a sort of social measles. They all recover rapidly."
"I had the—social measles," said Geraldine, smiling.
Duane repressed a shiver. "It's inevitable," he said gaily.... "That Bunny is a decent fellow."
"Will you show me his letter?" she asked, extending her hand as a matter of course.
"No, dear."
She looked up surprised.
"Why not? Oh—I beg your pardon, dear——"
Duane bent over, kissed her hand, and tossed the letter into the fire. It was her first experience in shadows cast before, and it came to her with a little shock that no two are ever one in the prosier sense of the theory.
The letter that Duane had read was this:
"Sylvia and I were married quietly yesterday and she has told me that you will know why. There is little further for me to say, Duane. My wife is ill. We're going to Cape Town to live for a while. We're going to be happy. I am now. She will be."My wife asked me to write you. Her regard for you is very high. She wishes me to tell you that I know everything I ought to have known when we were married. You were very kind to her. You're a good deal of a man, Duane."I want to add something: her brother, Stuyve, is out of the hospital and loose again. He's got all the virtues of a Pomeranian pup—that is, none; and he'll make a rotten bad fist of it. I'll tell you now that, during the past winter, twice, when drunk, he shot at his sister. She did not tell me this; he did, when in a snivelling condition at the hospital."So God knows what he may do in this matter. It seems that the blackguard in question has been warned to steer clear of Stuyvesant. It's up to them. I shall be glad to have Sylvia at Cape Town for a while."Delancy Grandcourt was witness for me, Rosalie for Sylvia. Delancy is a brick. Won't you ask him up to Roya-Neh? He's dying to go."And this is all. It's a queer life, isn't it, old fellow? But a good sporting proposition, anyway. It suits me."Our love to you, to the little chatelaine of Roya-Neh, to her brother, to Kathleen."Tell them we are married and off for Cape Town, but tell them no more."B. Gray.""It isn't necessary to say burn this scrawl."
"Sylvia and I were married quietly yesterday and she has told me that you will know why. There is little further for me to say, Duane. My wife is ill. We're going to Cape Town to live for a while. We're going to be happy. I am now. She will be.
"My wife asked me to write you. Her regard for you is very high. She wishes me to tell you that I know everything I ought to have known when we were married. You were very kind to her. You're a good deal of a man, Duane.
"I want to add something: her brother, Stuyve, is out of the hospital and loose again. He's got all the virtues of a Pomeranian pup—that is, none; and he'll make a rotten bad fist of it. I'll tell you now that, during the past winter, twice, when drunk, he shot at his sister. She did not tell me this; he did, when in a snivelling condition at the hospital.
"So God knows what he may do in this matter. It seems that the blackguard in question has been warned to steer clear of Stuyvesant. It's up to them. I shall be glad to have Sylvia at Cape Town for a while.
"Delancy Grandcourt was witness for me, Rosalie for Sylvia. Delancy is a brick. Won't you ask him up to Roya-Neh? He's dying to go.
"And this is all. It's a queer life, isn't it, old fellow? But a good sporting proposition, anyway. It suits me.
"Our love to you, to the little chatelaine of Roya-Neh, to her brother, to Kathleen.
"Tell them we are married and off for Cape Town, but tell them no more.
"B. Gray."
"It isn't necessary to say burn this scrawl."
Geraldine, watching him in calm speculation, said:
"I don't see why they were married so quietly. Nobody's in mourning——"
"Dear?"
"What, dear?"
"Do something for me."
"I promise."
"Then ask Delancy up here to shoot. Do you mind?"
"I'd love to. Can he come?"
"I think so."
"I'll write now. Won't it be jolly," she said innocently, "to have him and Rosalie here together——"
The blank change on his face checked her. "Isn't it all right?" she asked, astonished.
He had made his blunder. There was only one thing for him to say and he said it cordially, mentally damning himself for forgetting that Rosalie was to be invited.
"I'll write to them both this morning," concluded Geraldine. "Of course poor Jack Dysart is out of the question."
"A little," he said mildly. And, furious with himself, he rose as she stood up, and followed her into the armory, her cool little hand trailing and just touching his.
For half an hour they prowled about, examining Winchesters, Stevens, Mänlichers—every make and pattern of rifle and fowling-piece was represented in Scott's collection.
"Odd, isn't it, that he never shoots," mused Duane, lifting out a superb weapon from the rack behind the glass doors. "This seems to be one of those murderous, low trajectory pieces that fires a sort of brassy shot which is still rising when it's a mile beyond the bunker. Now, sweetheart, if you've a heavy suit of ancient armour which I can crawl into, I'll defy any boar that roots for mast on Cloudy Mountain."
It was great fun for Geraldine to lay out their equipment in two neat piles; a rifle apiece with cases and bandoliers; cartridges, two hunting-knives with leather sheaths, shooting hoods and coats; and timberjack's boots for her lover, moccasins for her; a pair of heavy sweaters for each, and woollen mitts, fashioned to leave the trigger finger free.
Beside these she laid two fur-lined overcoats, and backed away in naïve admiration at her industry.
"Wonderful, wonderful," he said. "We'll only require saucepans and boiler lids to look exactly like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee arrayed for battle. I say, Geraldine, how am I going to flee up a tree with all that on—and snow-shoes to boot-s," he added shamelessly, grinning over his degraded wit.
She ignored it, advised him with motherly directness concerning the proper underwear he must don, looked at her rifle, examined his and, bidding him assume it, led him out to the range in the orchard and made him target his weapon at a hundred yards.
There was a terrific fusillade for half an hour or so; his work was respectable, and, satisfied, she led him proudly back to the house and, curling up on the leather divan in the library, invited him to sit beside her.
"Do you love me?" she inquired with such impersonal curiosity that he revenged himself fully then and there; and she rose and, instinctively repairing the disorder of her hair, seated herself reproachfully at a distance.
"Can't a girl ask a simple question?" she said, aggrieved.
"Sure. Ask it again, dearest."
She disdained to reply, and sat coaxing the tendrils of her dark hair to obey the dainty discipline of her slender fingers.
"I thought you weren't going to," she observed irrelevantly. But he seemed to know what she meant.
"Don't you want me to even touch you for a year?"
"It isn't a year. Months of it are over."
"But in the months before us——"
"No."
She picked up a book. When he reached for a magazine she looked over the top of her book at him, then read a little, glanced up, read a little more, and looked at him again.
"Duane?"
"What?"
"This is a fool of a book. Do you want to read it?"
"No, thanks."
"Over my shoulder, I mean?"
He got up, seated himself on the arm of her chair, and looked at the printed page over her shoulder.
For a full minute neither moved; then she turned her head, very slowly, and, looking into his eyes, she rested her lips on his.
"My darling," she said; "my darling."
Which is one of the countless variations of the malady which makes the world spin round in one continual and perpetual fit.