CHAPTER FIVE.

JEAN RUNS AWAY.

The next day Jean displayed an inexplicable unwillingness to accept Edith Morton's invitation to dinner. All morning she affected to expect a letter announcing a cancelling of the plan. When afternoon came and no letter arrived, she fell back upon the usual feminine subterfuge.

"I think," she announced thoughtfully, "I'm almost sure, I have a headache!"

The two girls were seated alone in the upstairs boudoir, and anything less suffering than Jean's appearance would have been difficult to imagine. Vanna smiled, and put an incredulous question:

"Poor, puzzled darling. It is trying for you. How do you manage to decide these knotty points?"

For answer Jean ducked her head, and shook it violently from side to side. This singular process over, she raised a flushed, sparkling face, and pronounced slowly:

"Yes, it does; I can feel it. I can always tell when I do that."

Vanna's clear laugh rang out mockingly. To one who knew what it was to suffer from prostrating headache, which made it impossible to move, to speak, almost to breathe, the sight of Jean's ducked, shaking head was irresistibly comic. She brushed aside the frail pretence.

"My dear, it's no use. I see through you. Better confess at once. You don't want to go. Why?"

Jean looked at her in silence. Her eyes dilated, the colour paled on the rounded cheeks. It was pretence no longer, but real unaffected earnest.

"Vanna, he frightens me--that Robert Gloucester! He behaved like, like they do, you know--at the end. It's absurd, at the very first meeting. He couldn't possibly--_care_! I don't want to meet him again."

"You didn't like him, then?"

"Oh, yes, I did. Dreadfully. That's just why--"

"Enigma! Will you graciously explain?"

"Edith!" said Jean, in a low voice, almost a whisper. It seemed treacherous to speak of Edith's secret, but Vanna was as another self, to whom so far every thought had been confessed, and she was the most loyal of confidantes. Besides, if Robert Gloucester were to be successfully avoided, Vanna's co-operation would be needed.

"I am sure Edith cares for him, and if she does, she has had such a long, long wait. Imagine how it would feel, to love a man with those eyes, and wait alone at the other end of the world for six long years! It would make me wretched to spoil Edith's happiness; but if he came often, and looked at me like that, I--I should look back, Vanna, I know I should. I might make all the resolutions in the world, but they wouldn't last. I'm a born flirt. It's shocking, but it's true; therefore you perceive there's only one thing for it--to avoid temptation. You must go alone to-night, and say that I'm ill."

"Which would bring Edith round post-haste to-morrow morning, accompanied by her guest. You must think of a better excuse than that if you really wish to avoid him, my dear," replied Vanna derisively.

There was no contradicting this statement, for Jean was one of those rare and blessed mortals who did not know the meaning of illness. As a child she had romped gaily through the list of juvenile ailments, thereafter for a dozen years she had bloomed in radiant flower-like health, without a single day's illness, or a nearer approach to pain than a headache whose reality had to be diagnosed in the novel manner already described. To announce herself too unwell to keep a social engagement would indeed arouse alarmed attention. She mused in silence for several moments then said slowly:

"Yes! quite true! I should have to stay in bed, and that would be too boring. I couldn't immolate myself to that extent even for Edith. Vanna, what do you say to running off to the country to-morrow--you and I? Miggles is there already, getting ready the house. Theoretically she would chaperone us, practically we would bully her, and make her do whatever we liked. You are not keen on festivities just now, and the season will soon be over. I shouldn't mind giving up the few things that remain. We'd have lovely times together, and lead the simple life, and drink milk, and go to bed early, and give our poor tired hair a rest. It would be fun, wouldn't it, dear? Say you would like it too!"

Vanna looked thoughtfully at the lovely face. Jean was in earnest; and to one of her warmhearted, impulsive nature to be in earnest meant to be content with no half measures, but to insist upon wholesale surrender. It would be useless to protest, and indeed she had no wish to do so. Jean's flight would not avail; the fates had decreed that she and Robert Gloucester should meet, and would not be coerced from their plan--of that she was quietly convinced; at the same time, she felt a keen sympathy with the shattering of Edith's romance, and was content that Jean should put herself beyond the reach of blame.

"Oh, yes, I'd love to go," she replied. "It will be delightful to have you all to myself, and I'm in no mood for functions. But are you quite sure you won't be bored? You won't find it too lonely?"

"Oh, well!" replied Jean, laughing. "Incidentally, there is Piers Rendall! He went down last week to fish, and to cheer his mother. He shall cheer us, too. Well, then, it's all settled. You'll go alone to-night, and to-morrow morning bright and early we'll set off for the sea. I wish I had not bought that white dress..."

So it was arranged, and at eight o'clock that evening, Vanna entered Mrs Morton's drawing-room alone, and saw a shadow fall over Robert Gloucester's face, while Edith listened to the offered explanations with a surprise from which she loyally strove to banish any trace of relief. A shy girl of sixteen was summoned from the schoolroom to fill the vacant place at the table, and, putting aside his own disappointment, Gloucester insisted upon claiming her as his own partner, and kept her happy and amused throughout the meal. In the drawing-room his laugh was as cheery and content as if he had never known a care, and Vanna noticed that in a tactful, unobtrusive fashion he performed many of the duties overlooked by the host of the evening. It was he who observed that the draught from an open window was too strong for a delicate guest; he who turned aside from a laughing group to speak to the solitary occupant of a sofa; he who started an interesting topic of conversation, when the old showed signs of wearing thin; and the Mortons, old and young, regarded him with glowing eyes and punctuated their sentences with "Robert says," "Robert thinks," as though his opinion was sufficient to settle the most knotty point.

It was towards the end of the evening, when Vanna had her first quiet word with the hero of the occasion.

"What does it mean?" he asked at once. "Is it serious?" And when she queried blankly, "Her headache?" he replied, with such a transparency of distress, that she was ashamed to confess the unreality of the excuse.

"Oh, no--no. Nothing serious. A very passing thing."

"Then why is she leaving town so suddenly?"

Vanna looked at him, and the impulse came to speak the unvarnished truth, unconventional though it might be.

"To avoid you! You should not be so precipitate. It is disconcerting, to put it mildly, to have a man make violent love to one at a first meeting."

"I did not make love."

"Not in so many words, perhaps."

Gloucester blushed, remembering the rosebud at that moment pressed between the leaves of his pocket-book. For a few moments he was silent, gazing before him in puzzled fashion, then suddenly the shadow passed, he turned towards her with a smile, his eyes clear and untroubled.

"And so she is going to run away, a make-believe little journey of two or three hours? Does she imagine that she can hide herself so easily? There is no corner of the earth where I would not follow to find her at the end. She belongs to me. Do you imagine I shall give her up?"

Vanna was silent. In her heart of hearts she had no doubt on the point, and believed Jean's fate already settled; but she saw Edith's eyes fixed upon her from across the room, and felt a keen sympathy with the disappointment in store. Edith was no longer young; Edith had waited; for Edith the chances of life might be few and far between, while Jean held the open sesame of charm and beauty.

"May I give you some advice?" she said quickly. "You will probably refuse to take it, but it's on my mind to give it all the same. Don't be in a hurry. Let Jean go; don't try to see her. Stay behind, and think things over. She is beautiful, and your meeting was dramatic. Even I felt carried away. But marriage!--that is terribly serious. One ought to be so sure. You have her happiness to remember, as well as your own. Jean is impetuous and romantic. If she knew what we know, she would feel that all was settled, and that she had no choice. You don't want that. If she is to be your wife, it ought to be because she chooses you of her own deliberate will. Wait quietly for a few weeks and--drift! You may find in a few weeks' time that the impression fades--that there are other possibilities, other attractions."

Gloucester looked her in the face, and laughed, a full-throated, derisive laugh.

"You don't believe one word that you are saying. You are talking because you think you _ought_. Don't! What is the use of keeping up pretences--you and I? We have seen behind the scenes. Can't we stick to the truth?"

"You won't take my advice?"

"No, I won't."

"You refuse to be prudent in regard to the most important happening of your life?"

"I do. It's not a matter for prudence. It belongs to another sphere. I am thirty-five. I have waited long enough. Why should I squander more weeks to satisfy a convention? She shan't be hurried--she shall feel no obligation. I will not breathe a word about that old prophecy unless, _until_ she consents of her own will; but she must know what I want. I would tell her to-day if I had the chance."

"Which you shall not, if I can prevent it. It's not fair; it's not kind. What is Jean to think? That you are attracted by her face, and her face alone? That's a poor compliment. If she is worth winning she is worth knowing; and she has plenty of character. So far as I can judge, her nature and yours are quite unlike. Are you quite sure that you can make her happy? In fairness to her, you ought to give her a chance of knowing you before she takes the plunge."

"I can make her happy. I have no shadow of doubt about that. I'll tell you something more, if you like, Miss Strangeways--I am the only man who _can_! She belongs to me, and I am not going to stand aside for any man--or woman--on the face of the earth!"

Vanna shrugged her shoulders, half laughing, half annoyed.

"Very well, then, now we know where we are. For the moment please understand that I have joined the opposition. I shall run off with Jean and hide her, and instil principles of prudence and caution into her ear, coupled with a due suspicion of men who make up their minds in a hurry. Don't count upon my good offices."

"I shan't need them, thank you," he returned calmly.

Vanna reflected that it would be as easy to attempt to depress an india-rubber ball.