He laughedand there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening.
It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, and she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining silent where he might easily have been wittily otherwise.
This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests at Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks before them.
But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of the time, she saidwith the very faintest hint of challengetoo delicate, too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was there.
Do you shoot?
Yes; why?
I am reconciled to the shooting, then.
Oh, that is awfully civil of you. Sometimes Id rather play Bridge.
So should Isometimes.
Ill remember that, Mr. Siward; and when all the men are waiting for you to start out after grouse perhaps I may take that moment to whisper: May I play?
He laughed.
You mean that you really would stay and play double dummy when every other living man will be off to the coverts? Double dummyto improve my game?
Certainly! I need improvement.
Then there is something wrong with you, too, Mr. Siward.
She laughed and started to flick her whip, but at her first motion the horse gave trouble.
The bit doesnt fit, observed Siward.
You are perfectly right, she returned, surprised. I ought to have remembered; it is shameful to drive a horse improperly bitted. And, after a moment: You are considerate toward animals; it is good in a man.
Oh, its no merit. When animals are uncomfortable it worries me. Its one sort of selfishness, you see.
What nonsense, she said; and her smile was very friendly. Why doesnt a nice man ever admit hes nice when told so?
It seems they had advanced that far. For she was beginning to find this young man not only safe but promising; she had met nobody recently half as amusing, and the outlook at Shotover House had been unpromising with only the overgrateful Page twins to practise onthe other men collectively and individually boring her. And suddenly, welcome as manna from the sky, behold this highly agreeable boy to play withuntil Quarrier arrived. Her telegram had been addressed to Mr. Quarrier.
What was it you were saying about selfishness? she asked. Oh, I remember. It was nonsense.
Certainly.
She laughed, adding: Selfishness is so simply defined you know.
Is it? How.
A refusal to renounce. That covers everything, she concluded.
Sometimes renunciation is weaknessisnt it? he suggested.
In what case for example?
Well, suppose we take love.
Very well, you may take it if you like it.
Suppose you loved a man! he insisted.
Let him beware! What then?
And, suppose it would distress your family if you married him?
Id give him up.
If you loved him?
Love? That is the poorest excuse for selfishness, Mr. Siward.
So you would ruin your happiness and his
A girl ought to find more happiness in renouncing a selfish love than in love itself, announced Miss Landis with that serious conviction characteristic of her years.
Of course, assented Siward with a touch of malice, if you really do find more happiness in renouncing love than in love itself, it would be foolish not to do it
Mr. Siward! You are derisive. Besides, you are not acute. A woman is always an opportunist. When the event takes place I shall know what to do.
You mean when you want to marry the man you mustnt?
Exactly. I probably shall.
Marry him?
Wish to!
I see. But you wont, of course.
She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill.
We are going much too fast, said Miss Landis, smiling.
Driving too fast for
No, not driving, goingyou and I.
Oh, you mean
Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already.
In the country, you know, people
Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a weeks end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward.
Let us sit very still and think it over, he suggested. And they both laughed.
It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material of interest in the eight words: I will consider your request when you arrive.
I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier? she said.
After a seconds hesitation he replied: Yesa little. Everybody does.
You do know him?
Only atthe club.
Oh, the Lenox?
The Lenoxand the Patroons.
Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have passed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an engagement to marry Howard Quarrier. Then her thoughts, errant, wandered half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance with Quarrier at the Patroons Clubthe club itself being sufficient to settle Siwards status in every community.
Im trying to remember what it is I have heard about you, she continued amiably; you are
An odd expression in his eyes arrested herlong enough to note their colour and expressionand she continued, pleasantly; you are Stephen Siward, are you not? You see I know your name perfectly well Her straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, coupled his name with something indefinitely unpleasant. And she could not reconcile this with his appearance. However, the train of unlinked ideas which she pursued began to form the semblance of a chain. Coupling his name with Quarriers, and with a club, aroused memory; vague uneasiness stirred her to a glimmering comprehension. Siward? Stephen Siward? One of the New York Siwards then;one of that race
Suddenly the truth flashed upon her,the crude truth lacking definite detail, lacking circumstance and colour and atmosphere,merely the raw and ugly truth.
Had he looked at herand he did, oncehe could have seen only the unruffled and very sweet profile of a young girl. Composure was one of the masks she had learned to wearwhen she chose.
And she was thinking very hard all the while; So this is the man? I might have known his name. Where were my five wits? Siward!Stephen Siward! He is very young, too much too young to be so horrid.... Yetit wasnt so dreadful, after all; only the publicity! Dear me! I knew we were going too fast.
Miss Landis, he said.
Mr. Siward?very gently. It was her way to be gentle when generous.
I think, he said, that you are beginning to remember where you may have heard my name.
Yesa little She looked at him with the direct gaze of a child, but the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, but he met her gaze steadily enough.
I think, he said, that you are beginning to remember where you may have heard my name.
Yesa little She looked at him with the direct gaze of a child, but the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, but he met her gaze steadily enough.
It was rather nice of Mrs. Ferrall to ask me, he said, after the mess I made of things last spring.
Grace Ferrall is a dear, she replied.
After a moment he ventured: I suppose you saw it in the papers.
I think so; I had completely forgotten it; your name seemed to
I see. Then, listlessly: I couldnt have ventured to remind you thatthat perhaps you might not care to be so amiable
Mr. Siward, she said impulsively, you are nice to me! Why shouldnt I be amiable? It wasit wasIve forgotten just how dreadfully you did behave
Pretty badly.
Very?
They say so.
And what is your opinion Mr. Siward?
Oh, I ought to have known better. Something about him reminded her of a bad small boy; and suddenly in spite of her better sense, in spite of her instinctive caution, she found herself on the very verge of laughter. What was it in the man that disarmed and invited a confidencescarcely justified it appeared? What was it now that moved her to overlook what few overlooknot the fault, but its publicity? Was it his agreeable bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless moments of preoccupation, his youth that appealed to heraroused her charity, her generosity, her curiosity?
And had other people continued to accept him, too? What would Quarrier think of his presence at Shotover? She began to realise that she was a little afraid of Quarriers opinions. And his opinions were always judgments. However Grace Ferrall had thought it proper to ask him, and that meant social absolution. As far as that went she also was perfectly ready to absolve him if he needed it. But perhaps he didnt care!She looked at him, furtively. He seemed to be tranquil enough in his abstraction. Trouble appeared to slide very easily from his broad young shoulders. Perhaps he was already taking much for granted in her gentleness with him. And gradually speculation became interest and interest a young girls innocent curiosity to learn something of a man whose record it seemed almost impossible to reconcile with his personality.
I was wondering, he said looking up to encounter her clear eyes, whose house that is over there?
Beverly Planks shooting-box; Black Fells, she replied nodding toward the vast pile of blackish rocks against the sky, upon which sprawled a heavy stone house infested with chimneys.
Plank? Oh yes.
He smiled to remember the battering blows rained upon the ramparts of society by the master of Black Fells.
But the smile faded; and, glancing at him, the girl was surprised to see the subtle change in his facethe white worn look, then the old listless apathy which, all at once to her, hinted of something graver than preoccupation.
Are we near the sea? he asked.
Very near. Only a moment to the top of this hill.... Now look!
There lay the seathe same grey-blue crawling void that had ever fascinated and repelled himalways wrinkled, always in flat monotonous motion, spreading away, away to the sad worlds ends.
Full of menacealways, he said, unconscious that he had spoken aloud.
The sea!
He spoke without turning: The sea is a relentless thing for a man to fight.... There are other tides more persistent than the sea, but like itlike it in its menace.
His face seemed thinner, older; she noticed his cheek bones for the first time. Then, meeting her eyes, youth returned with a laugh and a touch of colour; and, without understanding exactly how, she was aware, presently, that they had insensibly slipped back to their light badinage and gay inconsequencesback to a footing which, strangely, seemed to be already an old footing, familiar, pleasant, and natural to return to.
Is that Shotover House? he asked as they came to the crest of the last hillock between them and the sea.
At last, Mr. Siward, she said mockingly; and now your troubles are nearly ended.
And yours, Miss Landis?
I dont know, she murmured to herself, thinking of the telegram with the faintest misgiving.
For she was very young, and she had not had half enough out of life as yet; and besides, her theories and preconceived plans for the safe and sound ordering of her life appeared to lack weightnay, they were dwindling already into insignificance.
Theory had almost decided her to answer Mr. Quarriers suggestion with a Yes. However, he was coming from the Lakes in a day or two. She could decide definitely when she had discussed the matter with him.
I wish that I owned this dog, observed Siward, as the phaeton entered the macadamised drive.
I wish so, too, she said, but he belongs to Mr. Quarrier.
CHAPTER II IMPRUDENCE
A house of native stone built into and among weather-scarred rocks, one massive wing butting seaward, others nosing north and south among cedars and outcropping ledgesthe whole silver-grey mass of masonry reddening under a westering sun, every dormer, every leaded diamond pane aflame; this was Shotover as Siward first beheld it.
Like the craggy vertebrae of a half-buried fossil splitting the sod, a ragged line of rock rose as a barrier to inland winds; the foreland, set here and there with tiny lawns and pockets of bright flowers, fell away to the cliffs; and here, sheer wet black rocks fronted the eternal battering of the Atlantic.
As the phaeton drew up under a pillared porte-cochere, one or two servants appeared; a rather imposing specimen bowed them through the doors into the hall where, in a wide chimney place, the embers of a drift-wood fire glimmered like a heap of dusty jewels. Bars of sunlight slanted on wall and rug, on stone floor and carved staircase, on the bronze foliations of the railed gallery above, where, in the golden gloom through a high window, sun-tipped tree tops against a sky of azure stirred like burnished foliage in a tapestry.
There is nobody here, of course, observed Miss Landis to Siward as they halted in front of the fire-place; the season opens to-day in this county, you see. She shrugged her pretty shoulders: And the women who dont shoot make the first field-luncheon a function.
She turned, nodded her adieux, then, over her shoulder, casually: If you havent an appointment with the Sand-Man before dinner you may find me in the gun-room.
Ill be there in about three minutes, he said; and what about this dog?looking down at the Sagamore pup who stood before him, wagging, attentive, always the gentleman to the tips of his toes.
Miss Landis laughed. Take him to your room if you like. Dogs have the run of the house.
So he followed a servant to the floor above where a smiling and very ornamental maid preceded him through a corridor and into that heavy wing of the house which fronted the sea.
Tea is served in the gun-room, sir, said the pretty maid, and disappeared to give place to a melancholy and silent young man who turned on the bath, laid out fresh raiment, and whispering, Scotch or Irish, sir? presently effaced himself.
Before he quenched his own thirst Siward filled a bowl and set it on the floor, and it seemed as though the dog would never finish gulping and slobbering in the limpid icy water.
Its the salt air, my boy, commented the young man, gravely refilling his own glass as though accepting the excuse on his own account.