CHAPTER XIV
THE DANGER LINE
1
OF course," said Lola, as she trifled with her teaspoon, "I ought really to have gone back to town as soon as I found that Miss Brock could not come."
"You unquestionably ought," agreed Beresford, as he indolently tossed crumbs of cake to a couple of sparrows.
She glanced at him swiftly, then dropped her eyes.
"That's not what I wanted you to say."
"I know," he said with a laugh. "Well, why didn't you go back to town?"
"I suppose because I didn't want to." She gave him a look from under her lashes.
They were sitting in the garden of an old inn having tea. Lola had expressed a wish for an excursion inland, and Beresford had hired a car.
It was an old-fashioned spot surrounded by an ivy-covered wall. The back of the house was obscured by a trellis covered with crimson-ramblers. A few fruit trees disputed with currant and rose bushes the possession of the garden. It seemed as if Nature had been permitted to go her own way, without either help or hindrance from man.
In the centre of the garden was a sundial, moss-green from exposure to the weather, the base overgrown with grass and some sort of weed-like creeper, whilst from above the lattice-windowed inn, a chimney reared its long neck and smoked lazily into the blueness of the sky. Birds were twittering and dropping on to the grass, seizing the crumbs of cake that Beresford idly tossed to them, then, as if suddenly realising their daring, they would speed away to devour their plunder in safety.
As the days passed, Lola and Beresford had drifted into the habit of spending all their time together. There had been no plan or arrangement; it had just happened. They still sat at different tables in the dining-room. She had not invited him to take meals with her. She was thinking of the proprieties, he decided. He was conscious that they formed the topic of conversation at the Imperial. The Thirty-Nine Articles had frankly thrown him overboard, and either ignored or glared at him.
During their walks and excursions together, Lola had told him much about herself. How she had lost her mother when a few months old, and her father, who died of a broken heart, three years later. An uncle in New Zealand, whom she had never seen, had assumed responsibility for his brother's child.
A little more than a year previously he had died, and she had inherited his vast fortune.
Just as war broke out her guardian had arranged for Mrs. Crisp, her mother's sister, to become her "dragon." Beresford gathered that there was no very great sympathy between Lola and her aunt.
There was a sadness in her voice when she spoke of her uncle. Apparently he had misogynist tendencies, and had refused to see the niece for whom he had provided. He would neither allow her to go to New Zealand, nor would he himself come to England. He was a man who lived entirely for his work.
In return Beresford told what little there was to tell about himself. How his mother had died when he was born, and his father had been killed in the hunting field a year later. Up to the time of his leaving Oxford, a cousin of his father's had acted as guardian. The fact that neither had known their parents seemed to constitute a bond between them.
"In my case, you see," Beresford remarked with a smile, when he had concluded his little autobiographical sketch, "the fairy uncle was missing."
As they sat in the inn garden, both were thinking of the approaching end of their holiday.
"I must go back to-morrow," she said. "More tea?"
"May I come, too? and yes, please."
For a moment she looked at him with crinkled eyebrows, her fingers on the handle of the teapot. Then she laughed and proceeded to fill his cup.
"You're very literal," she said, as she handed it to him.
"Am I?" he asked, selecting with great deliberation a lump of sugar, and holding it poised over the tea until it was slowly discoloured.
"You would make a very trying" she broke off suddenly and dropped her eyes.
"But you haven't answered my question." He pretended not to notice either her embarrassment or her flushed cheeks.
"Didn't I?" Her gaze was fixed upon a black cat that was making a great business of stalking a sparrow.
"You're merely trying to gain time."
"Am I?"
"You know you are."
"Why should I want to gain time?" Her gaze was still on the black cat which, having raised its bird when fully four yards away, was looking about expectantly like Elijah in the desert—for more birds. "Why should I want to gain time?" she repeated as Beresford remained silent. She still avoided his eyes.
"Possibly to spare my feelings," he replied, watching her closely.
"Or save my reputation," she retorted.
"Is it as bad as that?"
"What, my reputation?" She stole a glance at him; but finding his gaze upon her dropped her eyes instantly.
"No, the situation."
Again she was looking at the black cat.
"You have compromised me most horribly at the hotel," she said reproachfully.
With great deliberation Beresford rose and walking over to where the black cat was striving to return to the primitive bird-stalking ways of its progenitors, sent it clambering up the ivy and over the wall by the simple process of making a wild dive towards it. With equal deliberation he returned to his seat and, catching Lola's puzzled gaze, smiled.
"Why did you do that?" she enquired.
"I resent all rivals to your attention, be they the Thirty-Nine Articles or one solitary black cat," he replied, offering her a cigarette.
She shook her head, and he proceeded to light one himself.
"You are absurd," she laughed a little self-consciously.
"If your finances were reduced to the equivalent of about two weeks of ease and pleasure," he replied, "you, too, would be inclined to husband your resources."
"Am I a resource?" she flashed, then seeing him smile and, realising the implication, she began to search nervously in her bag.
"It's there," he said, pointing to an absurd dab of cambric that lay on the table beside her.
She looked up and, meeting his eyes, laughed.
"I think it will be better not," she said, toying with her handkerchief.
"To be a resource?" he queried.
"Of course not," she laughed. "I was answering your question."
"Which one?"
"How trying you are, and it's so hot," she protested, fanning herself with her handkerchief. "The one about returning to London, of course. Besides," she added with feminine inconsistency, "the doctor ordered you to stay here."
"Not indefinitely," he objected.
"But you've only been here a week."
"This is the ninth day of my wonder."
"And consequently the last."
He looked across at her, startled in spite of himself, as she sat, looking deliciously cool and provokingly pretty, in a little toque of brilliant colouring above an oatmeal-coloured frock.
"Somewhere in the lap of the ages I shall rest the better for the knowledge that once in my life I had a good time." He smiled at her gravely.
"Why do you say that?" she asked, looking at him with startled eyes. "It sounds so—so" she broke off, unable to find a simile.
For fully a minute he continued to smoke without speaking. At length he said, disregarding her question—
"Hasn't it been said that we never know when we are happy?"
She nodded.
"I have been happy for the last few days," he continued, "and I have been conscious of it every moment of the time."
She made no reply; but continued to toy with the lace of her handkerchief.
"Rain-Girl," he said quietly, "you have been a ripping pal, I" he broke off as she looked up. There were tears in her eyes.
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," she said in a low voice, none too well under control.
"Like what?"
"About—about Oh, I'm ridiculous!" making a vicious little dab with her handkerchief at a tear that toppled over the brim, and ran down the side of her nose. "You know what I mean," she said accusingly a moment later.
"Do I?" he asked calmly.
"Yes, now, don't you? Oh, please, please try and be different." There was eager pleading in her voice.
"There's the leopard and his spots," he suggested smiling.
"Please be serious, Mr. Beresford."
The use of his name seemed to bring him back from the shadowed pathway of his thoughts.
"I can't be serious if you are formal and call me 'Mr. Beresford' in that reproachful way." His eyes challenged, "It makes me feel like the Fortieth Article."
She laughed.
"I would sooner fall back into the nameless void of the last eight days than be 'Mr. Beresford' on the ninth."
"Well, will you?" She looked at him, her head slightly on one side.
"Will I what?" he queried.
"You really are the most provoking person I ever met," she cried in mock despair.
"That's exactly what Aunt Caroline says," he remarked easily. "Only she puts it more pithily. She just says, 'Richard, you're a fool.'"
"But you are rather trying, you know, aren't you?" She looked at him smilingly, her head still a little on one side, as if desirous of coaxing from him the admission.
"And if she gets still further exasperated," he continued, "she adds, 'You always were a fool.' My folly has become something of a family tradition. Even Drew frankly confesses that I'm a fool, although, out of the kindness of his heart, he modifies it somewhat by adding that he regards me as a pleasant sort of fool."
"I wish I knew when you were serious." She regarded him with a comical expression of uncertainty on her face.
"Never, if I can help it;" then suddenly leaning towards her, he said, "Yes, I'll be serious now. I'm serious when I tell you that I've been happier during the last nine days than in all the rest of my life before. I'm serious when I tell you how I value your comradeship," his voice shook a little. "I'm serious when I tell you that it has meant a lot to me to be taken on trust, as you have taken me. You have been splendid, Rain-Girl, more splendid than I thought it possible for any woman to be. You are just wonderful."
He smiled right into her eyes, and she looked down quickly.
"I've finished now," he said lightly. "I'm not often"
"Please don't." The words came from her lips almost in a sob.
"I'm sorry." He leaned across the table, and for a moment laid his hand on hers. "What is the matter?"
"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she cried, jumping up. "Why, there's the kitten back," and she pointed with her parasol to where the black cat was once more engaged in the everlasting self-deception that she was a great hunter of birds.
"Now let's go," she cried gaily, moving towards the gate.
They drove back to Folkestone in silence, both conscious of disappointment, Beresford with himself for having even momentarily forsaken his entrenched position of reserve; Lola with something that she was unable to define.
"And I'm not to receive an answer to my question?" he enquired quizzically as he handed her out of the car at the entrance of the Imperial.
"I'll tell you after dinner," she smiled, "whilst we are walking on the Leas. There will be a glorious moon to-night," she added as, with a nod, she left him with the conviction that the afternoon would in all probability prove as nothing to the evening.
As he went up to his room to dress, he decided that he would take no wine at dinner.
2
As Beresford entered the dining-room that evening, Mr. Byles was hovering about, obviously waiting for Lola to make her appearance, he decided. To his surprise, however, the major-domo approached him smiling and rubbing his hands.
"I've taken the liberty of using your table this evening, sir, as you are dining with Miss Craven," he said in the mellow, unctuous tone that he had adopted to Beresford since their little passage at arms over Mr. Montagu Gordon, whose Scottish name found so startling a contradiction in his nose.
Thrilled at the prospect of a tête-à-tête with Lola, Beresford nodded his acquiescence and, with an indifference he was far from feeling, walked over to her table and took the seat opposite that she usually occupied. He was conscious that every eye in the room was upon him, particularly the feminine eyes. Why hadn't she fold him that he was to dine with her this evening? Possibly it was a sudden whim. He was elated at the prospect. His previous qualms vanished. Nothing mattered now. There was just this delirious happiness, and then—the deluge. What of it? It was wonderful to be alive!
His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Lola approaching, conducted by the inevitable Mr. Byles. She was dressed in a simple black frock with a bunch of red roses at her waist. With a thrill he told himself that they were those he had sent her on the previous day.
"What do you think of me?" she enquired when Mr. Byles had taken a reluctant departure, having assured himself that everything was as it should be.
"Is it permitted to say?" asked Beresford.
"I'm afraid I'm in a mad mood to-night," she cried as she unfolded her napkin.
"And I am the sauce that is served with your madness?" he questioned.
She laughed.
"And you?" she demanded.
"More sober than usual," he replied with a smile.
She made a little moue.
"You see it will preserve the Aristotelean mean," he continued, as he helped himself to hors d'œuvres.
"The Aristotelean what?" she questioned, looking up from a sardine she was dissecting, with great daintiness, he thought.
"The via media."
"Would you mind coming down to my intellectual level?" she asked demurely.
Beresford laughed.
"Well?" she said, "I'm waiting."
"For?"
"You to come down from the classical clouds."
"Shall we say striking the balance," he suggested, "the middle way between your too much and my too little?"
"Am I too much?" she queried.
"For the women, yes, for the men, no. You see there are thirty-nine of them." Then seeing a shadow pass across her face, he hastened to add, "I didn't mean that about the women," he hesitated: "May I say it?"
She nodded.
"You look so radiant and happy," he added half to himself, "that" he stopped dead.
"More wonderful than on a gate?" she challenged.
"Nothing could be more wonderful than that," he said gravely, declining the wine that Mr. Byles was about to pour into his glass.
Seeing him refuse she looked across with elevated brows. He removed the inhibition, Mr. Byles depressed the neck of the bottle and the wine creamed into the glass.
"Why?" she queried, nodding at his wine glass. "Shall we say to preserve the Aristotelean mean?" he questioned quizzically.
Again she made that intimate little moue that set his pulses throbbing.
"I'm in a mad mood to-night," she cried again.
"You've already taken me into your confidence on that point."
"Have I?"
"It's probably due to a sense of sex isolation." He looked at her mischievously over his soup spoon.
"A sense of?"
"Every woman in the room disapproves of you," he said. "In other words, you are in a state of splendid sex isolation, feminine sex that is."
"I don't mind," she laughed.
"On the other hand," continued Beresford, "the male sex is with you to a man. That merely aggravates the situation."
For some minutes they ate in silence.
"If I were at the evening of the ninth day of my only wonder" She paused to see if he understood.
"I think I follow you through the labyrinth," he smiled.
"I should be more excited," she concluded a little weakly.
"More excited than what?" he asked mystified.
"Than you are." Her eyes challenged him.
"Unless you immediately withdraw that remark," he said warningly, "I shall insist on your feeling my pulse."
"I withdraw," she added hastily. "I'm so glad I'm not a cow," she cried presently, as with a sigh she placed her knife and fork at the "all clear" angle.
"So am I," he said quietly.
"So are you!" she repeated with a puzzled expression.
"Glad that you are not a cow," he explained.
"Why?" she challenged.
"Well, you see," he said gravely, "I should only be able to rub your nose, and you would soon get tired of that."
"How absurd you are," she cried. "I certainly should get tired of it. Besides," she added inconsequently, "you would rub the powder off."
"But it was the cow's nose."
"You said my nose."
"Temporarily leaving the question of whose nose for a later discussion," he said, "may I ask why this expression of satisfaction at the august decrees of Providence."
"It would be so monotonous," she objected.
"But I take it that even cows have their moments," he suggested.
"Oh, you don't understand," she cried with mock impatience.
"I think I do," he said quietly. "But it has been better said elsewhere, has it not?"
"Elsewhere?"
"'I thank Thee that I am not as other men are,'" he quoted, and then added, "for 'other men,' however, read 'cows.'"
"Oh!" There was consternation in her voice. "Did it sound like that? How dreadful."
"You have every justification."
"Please don't."
"I'm very sorry," he said, recognising the genuine entreaty in her voice. "Before coffee comes I want you to drink a toast with me."
"A toast?" she repeated, her eyes sparkling. "Oh, please tell me what it is."
"Otherwise you could not drink it."
"Pleeeeease," she entreated.
"It is to a certain gate on a Surrey high-road," he said gravely, raising his glass.
"Oh!" There was disappointment in her voice. Then with a laugh she raised her glass and drank.
Later, as they were about to rise from the table Beresford said:
"But I haven't yet thanked you for asking me to dinner."
"I didn't ask you," she said rising and picking up her handkerchief. "I instructed Byles to put you here."
He bowed humbly. "May I ask why?" he enquired.
"Because it's the ninth day of your wonder, and now I'll go and get my cloak," and she led the way out of the dining-room, Beresford following, exhilarated by the sensation her every movement seemed to create among the other guests.
3
The moon had not yet risen. There was no wind; the night was very still. Occasionally a shout or a laugh would stab the oppressive silence, seeming to add to its density. Here and there a sudden point of flame showed the whereabouts of some man lighting a cigarette or pipe.
"You haven't yet answered my question about to-morrow," said Beresford.
She did not reply. After fully three minutes' silence he reminded her that he was still waiting.
"I'm so sorry," she said with the air of one collecting her thoughts. "You see" she hesitated.
"Your reputation," he queried.
She nodded.
"But" he began.
"And then it's also the tenth day," she said mischievously.
"Please let me arrange everything," he said with the air of a boy asking to be allowed to handle a gun.
"Very well," she sighed. "My reputation be on your head."
"And I may arrange the time of the train and everything?"
Again she nodded, then a moment after said:
"You have me at a disadvantage. I can't argue on such a night. Now let's wait and watch for the moon." They were sitting on their favourite seat facing the sea. "I don't want to talk. Oh, that was terribly rude," she added; "but you understand, don't you?"
For answer Beresford touched her hand, then withdrew his quickly.
In silence they sat watching a patch on the horizon faintly flushed with yellow. Presently above the cloud of mist there slowly rose a dull globe of orange that began laboriously to climb the sky, heavy as if with weeping.
"It looks as if it were afraid of something that it knows it will see," said 'Lola in an awed voice.
Beresford felt her arm touch his shoulder. Was it accidental? he asked himself. With a feeling of exaltation he noticed that she did not withdraw. He made a slight movement, severing the contact as if by accident. He waited breathlessly. Yes, her arm had touched his shoulder again. She—she
Something wild and primitive seemed to spring into being within him. Something of the age when men fought for their women and carried them off by brute force. Why did he not carry off this girl? Why was she sitting there beside him if she were not prepared to be carried off? Why did he not clasp her to him and pour incoherent words into her ears, smothering her with kisses, inhaling the sweet perfume of her? Women such as she were won in a riot of physical mastery. She was no mate for the drawing-room wooer. No one would understand her as he had understood her. Other men would
Suddenly there came the thought of the Thirty-Nine Articles and he laughed, a short, odd laugh, which seemed to strike the soft night air like a discord. She started, turning to him with eyes dilated a little.
"What—what is the matter?" she enquired with a quick indrawing of breath.
"I was thinking of the Thirty-Nine Articles," he replied in a voice that he failed to recognise as his own. "Shall we go back?"
Without a word she rose and they walked towards the Imperial. Was it his imagination, or did her steps really lag? She appeared listless, so different from what she had been at dinner. It was absurd. He was in a mood to attribute all sorts of causes to simple actions. In suggesting that they should return to the hotel he had deliberately stabbed himself, and the pain of it maddened him. Still the Challice pride had triumphed.
There was no doubt about the listlessness with which Lola climbed the steps to the hotel. At the foot of the stairs she turned, and in a tired voice bade him good-night—where was that little intimate smile that he had come to regard as his own most cherished possession?
He went out once more into the night and walked and walked and walked, returning when the birds were twittering their greetings to the dawn.