Part 8

He knelt there, thinking a moment, head bent. Then he looked up at her.

"I have no reason to believe that you care for me," he said--"more than for any other man, I mean."

"You have no reason to believe so," she repeated, now thoroughly alarmed at what she'd done; and yet it was what she had deliberately set out to do. Her breath came unevenly. She strove to retain her composure, to recover the ground he seemed to have gained.

"Jim," she said, "you are too easily affected by your surroundings. A few trees, a summer sky, and a girl are destruction to you."

"You don't think that," he said quietly.

"I do, indeed. Witness my fate, and the plight of Christine."

He said, watching her: "Do you suppose that there is any sentimentality between Christine Rivett and me?"

"Oh, Jim! don't shuffle----"

"She is in love with another man," he said.

"Nonsense!" But a strange thrill shot through and through her, and, confused, she bent forward, looking him straight in the face.

"Diana! Diana!" he said under his breath, "did you care?"

"I?" she said, reddening. "Jim, I am not a baby.... I thought--as everybody thought--but it was of no consequence--except that she is a sweet girl, and you are my friend."

She recovered herself with a little laugh--or would have, had his hand not closed on hers. She gave it a friendly and vigorous pressure, and attempted to drop it; but he placed the other hand over it, inclosing her slender fingers, which frightened her into pretense of unconsciousness.

Now she stood on the threshold. Now she was on the eve of that daybreak from which she had prayed that the shadows might flee away; and she shrank from the coming light, afraid, while dawn threatened her with what, as yet, she had left undone. And even through the confused sense of expectancy and consternation ran a fierce flame of happiness.

Then, unable to endure it longer, she flung the mask from her, facing the tempest she had sown.

"Let me go, Jim," she said in a colorless voice.

But he held her hand closely imprisoned, and the next moment her body. The rapid racket of her heart seemed to stifle her; she tried to speak--lay inert, crushed against his shoulder, dumb, scarlet, under his kiss.

"I love you," he said; "I've always loved you.... I'm a blackguard to say it--penniless nobody that I am--without much chance to be anything else, apparently. But I say it for better or worse.... I love you. You like me, but you think lightly of me.... With sufficient reason, God knows.... And I have no right to touch you--no right in decency or law, Diana."

She forced herself away from him, but, somehow, held his hands clasped convulsively in hers.

"You--shouldn't have kissed me," she managed to say. "You mustn't do it again--ever."

He laid his face against their clasped hands; her own tightened.

"Nevertheless," he said, "I love you."

"You mustn't speak that way--" She dropped her flushed face; he lifted it, and kissed her again.

When he released her, she leaned back against the silver birch, head lowered, silent and did not move her hands from the moss as he bent and kissed them, too.

When at last she found her voice, she spoke so low that he bent his head closer to listen.

"That is the one imprudence I have never before committed--contact with any man. You must not do it to me again.... I don't know how to take it. I _can't_ love you. You know that." She looked up at him. "Don't you know it?"

"Yes," he said stubbornly.

"You _do_ know that I can't; don't you? And that you cannot really love me?"

"I suppose it ought to be that way; but it isn't."

And now the moment had come to make her desire a certainty--and finish what she had set herself to do--for this man's sake. She said:

"You _can't_ care for me, Jim! What am I anyway? A shallow, pleasure-loving nobody, who sells her frivolous social gifts because it is pleasanter and easier to make a living that way than to exercise a decent profession. How can such a man as you really fall in love with such a woman?"

She rose to her feet and stood leaning against the tree; and he rose, too, releasing her fingers.

She touched her hair, passed her hands slowly over her eyes, let them fall idly by her side; then, after a moment, looked up at him, faintly smiling.

"Melodrama is no use, is it?" she said. "You are not impressed by it; I can't act it. Life is less serious than the stage. Shall we come back together along the road to yesterday, and find our old, safe footing? ... And--shall I forgive you what you've done this summer day?"

"I want you to marry me," he said between compressed lips. "I'll make good, yet."

"What!" she exclaimed in apparent amazement. "_You!_"

"Will you marry me?"

How she forced the light laughter she never understood; and she saw her gayety bring the blood to his face like a whip lash.

"Marry! No, I won't marry you," she laughed. "Mercy on the man! Does he suppose I wish to marry a professional entertainer?--a generally useful gentleman--a big, strong, healthy, well-built, intelligent fellow, too indolent to rouse himself and make a respectable living?--too self-indulgent to start in a manly career and fight the world--take it by the throat and shake a decent living out of its sinful old pockets?"

A deeper flush of astonishment and mortification swept his face, settling to the roots of his hair.

She did not seem to notice it or his silence.

"Nonsense," she laughed; "a girl, with any humor, simply _couldn't_ love such a man, even if she wanted to, Jim. Because, how can she respect him? ... You're a dear, generous fellow--nice to everybody, perfectly sweet to Silvette and to me, and I _do_ like you--even _love_ you, in a certain sense--and I didn't really mind being kissed any more than as though Silvette had done it. But I'm simply not fashioned to lose my head over a man who is hired by the month to be socially pleasant." She laughed again, and laid her hand carelessly on his arm; and under her touch she felt it was rigid and hard as iron.

"You see, don't you?" she said sweetly. "You're not grown up yet, Jim. It takes more than you yet are to satisfy me."

He managed to force his voice out of his quivering throat.

"You're right," he said. "I didn't know what I was talking about. You are worth trying for."

They turned away together; she slipped one hand confidently through his arm, leaning on him lightly as they walked.

"You're not hopelessly offended, are you, Jim?"

"No--good God, no."

"I'd love you if I could," she said soothingly, "but the instincts of mating with anything resembling servitude are wanting in me. Besides, two slaves are enough for one family--Silvette and I.... You are not hurt or angry at my very horrid frankness?"

"No.... What you said is all right." He lifted his eyes and looked his punishment squarely in the face; and her heart failed her, so that she turned her head swiftly, the tears stinging her throat.

They walked soberly on through the meadow up to the house. She gave him her hand at parting; then went leisurely to her room to dress for dinner.

And Silvette found her there alone on her knees beside the window, partly undressed, her head buried in her arms, the brown locks clustering against her pale and tear-stained face.

"Diana!" she exclaimed softly. "What is the matter, child?"

The girl got up wearily, keeping her face out of the flood of light from the electric brackets.

"Nothing much," she said; "I've only been very horrid to Jim."

"I thought you were going to be kinder," said Silvette, astonished.

"I have been; but he doesn't know it."

Her sister stood silent, looking at her with sorrowful eyes.

"Don't sympathize with me; I--I can't bear it, Silvie."

"No--if you don't wish it, dear.... Shall I fix your bath? ... And--_who_ do you suppose is downstairs?"

Diana looked up inquiringly.

"The man you flirted with so outrageously at Keno!"

"Which?" asked Diana naively.

"Billy Inwood!"

Diana brightened a little.

"At least," she said with sad satisfaction, "I can occupy my mind with him for a while. He got away before he was thoroughly disciplined. _I_ believe there was another girl somewhere.... I think I'll obliterate her--unless I approve of her. There's the making of a man in that boy, Silvette."

But she decided otherwise a few moments before dinner was announced, when Inwood made his appearance in the drawing-room and greeted his hostess. Then, catching sight of her, he came hastily toward her with both hands outstretched.

"Diana!" he exclaimed; "_isn't_ this jolly! I'm terribly glad to see you again... And Silvette! Oh, this is simply too delightful! I----"

Speech stopped, perhaps froze on his lips; then he turned fiery red as he stepped forward to greet Mrs. Wemyss. A year ago she had been a comparatively slim and pretty divorcee; to-day even the embarrassing opulence and prodigality of her charms had not altered the doll-like perfection of her features. He knew her instantly, and, in his brain, chaos menaced him.

"How do you do," he said; "this is most delightful and surprising. Lilly----"

"Charming," murmured Mrs. Wemyss; and, under her smile, she lowered her voice: "I'm Lilly Wemyss; I've taken my maiden name. Don't forget, and call me Mrs. Atherstane."

He nodded, the fixed smile imprinted on his features; and it remained there as they stood in conversation until dinner was announced.

He took in Christine. The girl's arm rested lightly as a feather on his sleeve. During dinner she talked to him pleasantly, but without animation; and, somehow, all seemed to go wrong with him, for he found scarcely anything to say to Christine--anything that was not trite and banal. And his haunted eyes reverted again and again to Mrs. Wemyss.

"Oh, Lord!" he thought, "what a horrible mess; and is Lilly going to expect me to--to----"

But his scared wits could speculate no farther, and he sat beside Christine, worried, unhappy, penitent, too miserable to enjoy the moment to which he had looked forward so impetuously all day long--a moment which, two days ago, he dared not believe would ever again come into his life.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*MILLE MODI VENERIS*

A number of matters had been slightly disturbing Colonel Curmew's intellect and digestion. One thing, he had lost money at cards--a thing he hated as heartily as Judge Wicklow hated it. Another matter--Jack Rivett had fairly driven him out of Silvette's vicinity. True, an easily transferred devotion to her sister already consoled him; the one was as ornamental as the other, but he liked young Rivett no better.

He desired to ingratiate himself with Jack because the boy had never liked him, and he neither understood why nor became reconciled to it; and he was always making advances and assuming, under the jocular familiarity of an older man, that there existed between himself and Jack a delightful and cordial understanding, which Jack coolly ignored; and the colonel disliked him the more.

Then, there was another matter which occupied him--had occupied him, now, for several years. He meant to marry Christine Rivett some day. For the present he was satisfied to treat her with the same jovial familiarity with which he treated her brother; and now it seemed to him that Christine, whom he feared might become too much interested in Edgerton, was veering toward this young Inwood fellow who had just arrived.

Colonel Curmew was not actually alarmed; he was merely bored, and now and then a trifle uneasy, because he had to take this and other matters into his calculations in being attentive to Diana Tennant.

No, he was not worried. He Lad become cheerfully convinced that both these matters could be properly attended to. Let Christine have her fling and grow up. Her fortune kept pace with her, anyway.

But about Diana Tennant he had not yet entirely made up his mind--and yet he had made it up, too, after a fashion.

There were, including Diana's youth and beauty, several things about her which were likely to attract the attention of such a man as Follis Curmew. First of all, she was poor. Also, she was self-supporting and alone in the world except for a similarly situated sister who didn't count, and a very distant relative who didn't really count, either.

She was beautiful and clever; men appreciate such women. Such women, he also believed, deeply appreciated the kind of things they could not afford.... And, furthermore, he did not hesitate to believe that such women were perfectly capable of appreciating middle-aged military gentlemen of discretion, fortune, and liberality in reason.

So he contrived to get as close to Diana as he could on all occasions; and very often, to her surprise, she found him at her heels or seated unnaturally near her, pale eyes slightly protruding, his curling mustache and little side whiskers faintly redolent of brilliantine.

Amused, and not yet uneasy, she mentioned his assiduity to her sister, and thought nothing further of it; nor did Silvette, preoccupied with an episode of her own which threatened to become something approaching a problem.

Instinct told her that Jack Rivett preferred her to anybody at Adriutha; and she liked him well enough to find his attention agreeable. But little by little it became more marked--to her, if not to others--and she experienced a slight uneasiness concerning this very rich and idle only son, the ambition of whose father had now become plain to her.

So Silvette at first very pleasantly discouraged him, and kept out of tete-a-tetes as much as possible, in which maneuvers she was not very successful. For the girl found in this lazy, witty, good-humored, self-indulgent young fellow a cool and confident adversary--resistless because of his charming manner toward her and his unvarying cheerfulness under rebuffs which were becoming more frequent and more severe--and, alas, more useless.

About a week after Inwood's arrival, while writing a letter in the rose-garden pavilion, a shadow checkered the lattice work and fell across her note paper; and, glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett, hands in his coat pockets, the breeze ruffling his blond hair.

"I'm writing," she said, annoyed.

"I'll sit down on the sundial," he rejoined with a bow and a smile as though accepting a delightful invitation.

"But I'll be writing about two hours," she observed coldly.

"Writing about two hours?" he repeated. "But why write about hours at all, dear lady. An hour is an arbitrary division of time, interesting only to the unhappy."

"Very witty," she said. "Go and scratch it on the sundial."

And she resumed her letter, trying not to be aware of the blond young man seated just outside the summer house, where the sun gilded his hair and the wind mussed it into a most becoming mop.

Several times she bit the pearl tip of her penholder, frowning; but he always seemed to catch her eye at such moments, and her deepening frown only produced on his face an expression which was so very humble that it became almost mischievous.

"Jack!"

He hurriedly rose, and looked all around him among the roses as though eagerly searching for the person who had called him.

"_Jack!_" she repeated emphatically.

He pretended to discover her for the first time, and hurried joyously to the lattice door.

"Jack--you perfect idiot! I want to write, and I simply can't, with you sitting around in that martyred manner."

"How far away shall I retire?" he inquired, so sad and crestfallen, that between amusement and annoyance she did not reply, but merely sat tapping with her pen and inspecting her letter.

As she did not speak again, very cautiously--and holding up one hand as an unwelcome dog holds up one beseeching paw to ward off calamity--he ventured to seat himself on a bench outside the summer house.

She was perfectly aware of the inimitable pantomime, and a violent desire to laugh seized her, but she only bit her lip and resolutely dipped her pen into the ink once more.

She wrote obstinately, knowing all the while that she'd have to rewrite it. His excessive stillness began to get on her nerves; and, after a quarter of an hour's preternatural silence, she could endure it no longer.

"Jack!"

"Dear lady?" he replied patiently.

"Why don't you say something?"

"I was forbidden the exquisite consolation of noise."

"It's horribly hot and still out here. Why don't the birds sing?"

"They're moulting, dear lady. All their little pin feathers have become unfastened, and their bills are probably full of pins while they make themselves tidy again."

"So that is why they don't sing in July?" she said.

"That is why," he explained seriously.

"Well, then, why don't _you_ sing? _You_ are not untidy."

"Nothing could suit my pensive and melancholy mood better," he said sadly.

A moment later, sitting outside her door, he began with deep emotion to sing one of Kirk's melting melodies:

"_With head bowed low a dentist stood_ _Before his office chair;_ _A handsome lady customer_ _Into his eyes did stare._ _He tried to fake a careless smile_ _And hide his drooping jaw,_ _But all in vain because his guilt_ _Was plainly to be saw._ _His voice was choked with shame and fear,_ _He said, 'Forgive me, miss!'_ _But when he begged her pardon there_ _The lady then did hiss:_

_Chorus._

"'_Take back them teeth you made me! I_ _Won't wear them in my face!_ _Go hang them in your parlor as_ _A badge of your disgrace._ _You swore them crowns was solid gold!_ _You're false--like teeth and men!_ _Take back them teeth, you lobster!_ _Never speak to me again!_ _Take back--take ba-ack--take ba-a-a----_'"

"Jack!" she exclaimed, "that is the most--most degraded thing I ever heard you utter!"

"I'm accustoming you, by degrees, to my repertoire. With infinite precautions you will, in time, be able to endure much worse than this," he explained kindly. "Now, what shall we try next, dear lady? I have a little song called: 'Only a pint of shoe strings!'"

"Don't you dare attempt it! ... Jack, _please_ go away. Won't you, when I ask it?"

"She mutters the unthinkable," he said, shaking his head. "My music has unseated her reason. By and by she will begin to moan and revive."

"It's perfectly outrageous," she said, tearing up what she had written, and moving aside a little so that sufficient space remained for--her sister, perhaps. So he entered the summer house and waited for an invitation, bland, cheerful, irresistible.

"I had no idea I was so pitiably weak-minded," she said.

He accepted the avowal as his invitation, and seated himself.

"Silvette," he said genially, "what are we going to do to-day?"

"Who?"

"Why, you and I. Who cares what the others do in this mad world, dear lady?"

"I don't know about the world," she said, "but there's one girl in it who is mad; and she's going to her room to write letters."

"When?"

"Now!"

"Don't."

"Indeed, I shall!"

"Shall, or will?" he inquired, guilelessly, "People mix up those two auxiliaries so persistently that there's no telling what anybody really means in these days."

She considered a moment, then turned and looked at him.

"Jack," she said sweetly, "don't follow me about?"

"I? Follow _you_! That's more madness, dear lady. Who on earth ever whispered to you that I could ever do such a----"

"Won't you be serious, please?"

Her pretty, dark eyes were serious enough, even appealing. He became solemn at once.

"You have forced me to say this," she ventured. "I didn't wish to; I thought you'd understand, but you don't seem to. So I am compelled to say to you that--it is--better taste for you to--not to----"

She hesitated, glanced up at him, colored brightly.

"You know perfectly well what I mean! And there you sit, letting me try to tell you as nicely as I can----"

"About what, dear lady?"

"About you and me!" she said, incensed. "You know perfectly well that I've been obliged to avoid being alone with you."

"Why?"

"Because," she said, intensely annoyed, "I am employed by your parents, and you are an only son of Mr. Jacob Rivett.... Is that unmistakable?"

He said nothing.

She went on: "You know I like you, Jack. You seem to like me. If you do, you'll understand that this--this continually seeking me out, separating me from the others, isn't fair to me.... I'm trying not to talk nonsense about it. I know you mean nothing but kindness; but it isn't wise, and it is not agreeable, either. So let us enjoy our very delightful friendship as freely among others as we do when alone together--" She stopped abruptly, blushed to her hair, furious at herself, astonished that her tongue could have blundered so. The next instant she understood that he was too decent to notice her blunder. Indeed, to look at him, she almost persuaded herself that he had not even heard her speak, so coolly remote were his eyes, so preoccupied his air as he sat facing the far hills, blue in the July haze.

Presently he looked up at her.

"What was it you were lecturing me about?" he asked cheerfully.

"About our twosing, Jack."

"Did you say you _did_ prefer it, or otherwise?"

"Otherwise--you monkey!" she said, laughing, free of the restraint and of the bright color that had made even her neck hot.

"Very well," he said briskly; "keep your distance! Don't start running after me the moment I come in sight across the landscape. Will you promise?"

"I promise," she said solemnly.

"Thank you. I shall have a little leisure now. I'll have so much I won't know what to do with it. Can you advise me?"

"I cannot."

"Then I'll have to think for myself.... I'll have to do something, of course.... Suppose you and I take a canoe----"

"Canoes hold only two, Jack."

"By Jove! What am I thinking of! Thank you for saving me from incredible suffering.... So suppose we don't take a canoe, you and I, but we take the red runabout?"

"Jack!"

"What?"

"The red runabout holds two, only."

"I must be demented!" he said with a shudder.... "Silvette, I'll tell you what we'll do--we'll take a walk, you and I. There's room all around us for millions of other people. They can come if they like; if they don't, why, it's up to them!"

"No, Jack."

"Won't it do?"

"No. Why won't you be a little bit serious about a matter that, after all, concerns me very nearly."

"I _am_ serious," he said. "It concerns me, too."

"No, it doesn't."

"Indeed, it does. Two people are not to go twosing any more; _I'm_ one of those people. Therefore, it concerns me, doesn't it?"

She looked at him, confused, half smiling, half reluctant.

"Don't you know," she said, "that your attention to me is worrying your father and mother?"

He thought a moment, then slowly turned toward her a sober and youthful face, from which all humor had departed; and she looked back at him out of grave young eyes that met his very sweetly, but inexorably.

"Do you mean it, Silvette?"

"About your parents?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I do, Jack."

He said, partly to himself: "I had not noticed it."

"I have. It's a woman's business to notice such things. Otherwise, she'll find herself in trouble.... Inclination is a silly guide, Jack."

"For me?"

"For--us both.... I will be frank with you all the way through. I do like you. I enjoy our tete-a-tetes. They are perfectly honest and harmless, and without significance--the significance, alas, that others will surely attach to them.... It isn't that there's anything wrong with you and me, Jack.... It's the World that is wrong.... But--it's the World; and you and I must conform to its prejudices as long as we inhabit it--at least _I_ must."

"I suppose you must," he said. Then, leaning a little nearer, he took her hand, held it lightly across his palm, looked at it a moment, then at her.