How can it be? impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was unnerving heryet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. How can you really care for me? Do you actually believe thatdevotioncomes like that?
Exactly like that.
So suddenly? It is impossible! with a twist of her pretty shoulders.
How did it cometo you? he asked between his teeth.
Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands contracted in histightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a minutemore, perhaps, she did not knowshe half lay in his arms, her untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back, too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice.
He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him toperhaps herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she had committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering in shameful witness on every hand.
Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase passed after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly composed, into another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to understand what had happened without the disproportion of emotional exaggeration. After all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a novice, which probably accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable emotion coincident with a caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without looking up at him she found herself saying coolly enough to surprise herself: I never supposed I was capable of that. It appears that I am. I havent anything to say for myself except that I feel fearfully humiliated.... Dont say anything now I do not blame you, truly I do not. It was contemptible of meto do itwearing this she stretched out her slender left hand, not looking at him; it was contemptible! She slowly raised her eyes, summoning all her courage to face him.
But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such arts, enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in the swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were truly hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of anything save perfection in a gay, imprudent rôle, what a weight lifted, what relief, what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she would take on him for the agony of her awakeningthe dazed chagrin, the dread of his wise, amused eyeseyes that she feared had often looked upon such scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details as the shamed demeanour of a novice.
Why do you take it so seriously? she said, laughing and studying him, certain now of herself in this new disguise.
Do you take it lightly? he asked, striving to smile.
I? Ah, I must, you know. You dont expect to marry me do you, Mr. Siward?
I He choked up at that, grimly for a while.
Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him, near himtoo near. Try to be sensible, she was saying gaily; I like you so muchand it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. And besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you knowreasons for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism shock you? What am I to do? with a shrug. Such marriages are reasonable, and far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole motivecertainly far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to abstract emotion with nothing concrete in view.... So, you see, I could not marry you even if I her voice was inclined to tremble, but she controlled it. Would she never learn her rôle? even if I loved you
Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by side, through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further speech.
Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned with the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at Osprey Ledge.
She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a sweet, natural voice for his care of herquite innocentlyuntil in the questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of selfere she had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her years with the figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter title, Love.
CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER
The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off into swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters.
There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls guests were bidden by Beverly Planka curious scene, where ladies and gentlemen stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, while another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of frightened, bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the miserable aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the desolation of a coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand.
So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the silver birches.
Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his own boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags or target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed.
Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward.
Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a haunter of cushions in sunny corners. Tom OHara had gone back to Lenox; Mrs. Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells, began to pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and Major Belwether pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheonthe latter doing little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how much with his gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field methodically, shot with judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant performance which might endanger his respectable average. As for the Page boys, they kept the river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel could be persuaded to share the canoes with them. Otherwise they haunted the vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering snubs sorrowfully, but persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance in the evening, especially as their sister did not permit them to lose more than ten dollars a day at cards.
Cardsthat is Bridge and Preferenceruled as usual; and the latter game being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid Siward toward recouping his Bridge losses.
Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested Klondyke for Siwards benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring rather to carry Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke.
Two matters occupied him; since cup day he had never had another opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He had touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall had found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That was the second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his attention, particularly when the physical desire for it set in, steadily, mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide.... But, like the tide, it ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had exhausted him.
He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon delivered him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many millions, with Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to sentimentality. He had ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier, tooa matter which troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of the reaction he had been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and the gun-room books were open to any doubting guests inspection.
Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide threatenedwhen at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its crawling advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, when the aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to the card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for him.
But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he shrugged desire aside. It was night that he dreadedthe long hours, lying there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire.
As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away by that time, curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the dark pines flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing wind drove health into her and care out of hercleansing, purifying, overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she had just confessed.
He kissed you! repeated Grace Ferrall incredulously.
Yesa number of times. He was silly enough to do it, and I let him.
Diddid he say
I dont know what he said; I was all nervesconfusedscareda perfect stick in fact! I dont believe hed care to try again.
Then Mrs. Ferrall deliberately settled down in her furs to extract from the girl beside her every essential detail; and the girl, frank at first, grew shy and silentreticent enough to worry her friend into a silence which lasted a long while for a cheerful little matron of her sort.
Presently they spoke of other mattersmatters interesting to pretty women with much to do in the coming winter between New York, Hot Springs, and Florida; surmises as to dinners, dances, and the newcomers in the younger sets, and the marriages to be arranged or disarranged, and the scandals humanity is heir to, and the attitude of the bishop toward divorce.
And the new pavillion to be built for Saint Berolds Hospital, and the various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of discrimination betrayed by our ambassador to a certain great Power in choosing people for presentation at court, and the latest unhappy British-American marriage, and the hopelessness of the French as decent husbands, and the recent accident to the Claymores big yacht, and the tendency of well-born young men toward politics, and the anything but distinguished person of Lord Alderdene, which was, however, vastly superior to the demeanour and person of others of his rank recently imported, and the beauty of Miss Caithness, and the chance that Captain Voucher had if Leila Mortimer would let him alone, and the absurdity of the Page twins, and the furtive coarseness of Leroy Mortimer and his general badness, and the sadness of Leila Mortimers lot when she had always been in love with other people,and a little scandalous surmise concerning Tom OHara, and the new house on Seventy-ninth Street building for Mrs. Vendenning, and that charming widows success at last years horse showand whether the fashion of the function was reviving, and whether Beverly Plank had completely broken into the social sets he had besieged so long, or whether a few of the hunting and shooting people merely permitted him to drive pheasants for them, and why Katharyn Tassel made eyes at him, having sufficient money of her own to die unwed, andandand then, at last, as the big motor car swung in a circle at Wenniston Cross-Roads, and poked its brass and lacquer muzzle toward Shotover, the talk swung back to Siward once morehaving travelled half the world over to find him.
He is the sweetest fellow with his mother, sighed Grace; and that counts heavily with me. But theres trouble ahead for hersorrow and trouble enough for them both, if he is a true Siward.
Heredity again! said Sylvia impatiently. Isnt he man enough to win out? Ill bet you he settles down, marries, and
Marries? Not he! How many girls do you suppose have believed thatwere justified in believing he meant anything by his attractive manner and nice ways of telling you how much he liked you? He had a desperate affair with Mrs. Mortimerinnocent enough I fancy. Hes had a dozen within three years; and in a week Rena Bonnesdel has come to making eyes at him, and Eileen gives him no end of chances which he doesnt see. As for Marion Page, the girl had been on the edge of loving him for years! You laugh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she ever can be with anybody.
You mean
Yes I do. Hadnt you suspected it?
And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent.
If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could, continued Mrs. Ferrall. Hes a perfect fool not to see how she cares for him.
Sylvia said: He is indeed.
It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would only ask her. But he wont.
Perhaps, ventured Sylvia, shell ask him. She strikes me as that sort. I do not mean it unkindlyonly Marion is so tailor-made and cigaretteful
Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her.
Did he propose to you?
YesI think so.
Then its the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to play with him as a rule, and he doesnt have to be definite. I wonder what he meant by being so definite with you?