Across the Stream Part 20

"Yes, everything. And I want it not only for myself but for everybody."

She made the mental note that he was very shy, for he had nothing in response to this, except that his shirt creaked. But that suited her very well; she did not want him to follow this up, just yet.

Meantime the sedate marchings and retreats and occasional revolution of the fox-trot went decorously on. The room was very full, and, when there was nowhere to march to, they stopped where they were and marked time and rocked a little to and fro. Then perhaps a narrow lane opened in front of them, and they waddled down it, brushing shoulders against the hedges. She had seen Archie go to Mrs. Morris, after which he had appeared for a moment in the gallery where the band was, and now he was back again, standing near the door and watching her. She gave him little glances from time to time, elevated her eyebrows as if in deprecation of this unexhilarating performance, or smiled at him, guessing that he had arranged for another waltz.

At last the end came, the fox-trotters ceased to clutch each other, and walked away with about as much Terpsich.o.r.ean fervour as they had been dancing with. Dull though the last twenty minutes had been from that standpoint, Helena felt quite satisfied with it, while motion--or perhaps emotion--had made her partner hot; he gently wiped his forehead with a very fine cambric handkerchief.

"Perfectly delicious," he said. "I should have liked that to go on for ever. And how long shall I have to wait before it begins again?"

Archie had sidled through the crowd up to them.

"Helena, we're going to have another waltz at once," he cried. "Don't let us waste any of it."

She laid her hand on his arm.

"We?" she said. "Are you quite certain?"

"May I say 'we' also?" asked Lord Harlow.

She turned towards him, but her hand still rested on Archie, and he felt the slight pressure from her fingertips.

"Oh, I was only teasing my cousin," she said. "I had promised him another waltz. But, later, may I borrow my Bradshaw again?"

The band struck up, setting her a-tingle for the repet.i.tion of what had gone before.

"Oh, Archie, come on," she cried. "_Au revoir_, Bradshaw."

Alert for movement, with the heady tune of the waltz already mounting into them like wine, they stepped off on to the floor. It was like stepping on to some moving platform; it and the tune, without any conscious effort of their own, seemed to carry them away. But Archie had one question to ask before he abandoned himself.

"Bradshaw?" he said. "I thought you told me his name was Harlow."

She gave a little bubble of laughter.

"Oh, that was only a joke," she said. "He told me that you and I were like a Bacchic festival, and he felt as prosy as a Bradshaw in consequence."

"But what does it matter to him what we are like?" asked he.

"Well, it was a compliment; he meant it nicely," said she. "Don't let us talk; it rather spoils it."

Helena reviewed those manoeuvres when she got home that night, and she congratulated herself on the neatness and efficiency of her dispositions. She felt sure that she had stirred up a livelier ferment in Lord Harlow, and had also managed to inspire him with a vague distrust and jealousy of her intimacy with Archie. She suspected that he was a little sluggish in his emotions, and this would serve admirably as a stimulant. She quite realized that she had not yet brought him up to the point of proposing to her, for his inured bachelor habits would want a good deal of breaking; but it was clear to her that she had made a crack in them, and that the judicious use of Archie might be profitably used to widen that crack. Under the influence merely of her charms, he might hold together for a long time yet, and she wanted him, if she could have it entirely her own way, to propose to her about the end of the season. The effect of Archie constantly with her would be c.u.mulative: it was not a wedge that would cause him to fly into splinters forthwith; it would just widen the crack, prevent it closing again, and then widen it a little more.

And meanwhile it was extremely pleasant always to have this wedge in her hand, to hammer from time to time, as it suited her main plan, and at others to stroke and play with. She was not in love with Archie, but it made her purr to see that he was certainly falling in love with her, to dab him with sheathed claws, to wish that he had those material advantages which had made her choose the elder man. It clearly served her purpose to use him, and the using of him gave her pleasure. But the pleasure was secondary--it was the a.s.sistance he gave her in breaking up Lord Harlow that was of primary importance.

Archie brought all his gaiety and charm to bear on his love-making.

Falling in love did not appear to him, at this stage, anything but the most exhilarating, almost hilarious experience. The flirtation that Helena seemed to be having with Lord Harlow amused him enormously; not for a moment did he believe that Helena meant anything. Lord Harlow was not the only man on whom Helena exercised the perfectly legitimate attraction of her extreme prettiness and her enthusiastic child-like enjoyment.

"Oh, every one is so kind and so awfully nice," she said to him one day as they returned from an early morning ride. "I love them all by the handful."

"Including the Bradshaw?" asked he.

"Yes, certainly including the Bradshaw. Don't you like him? He likes you so much."

Archie considered this.

"I don't know if I like him or not," he said. "I don't think I ever thought about it. He doesn't matter. But you matter awfully to him. Did you know that you are the most outrageous flirt, Helena?"

"Archie, how horrid of you!" said she. "Just because I like people, and to a certain extent they like me. Why should I be cross and unpleasant to people, as if it was wicked to like them?"

"Well, if you'll give me long odds I will bet you that the Bradshaw asks you to--to be his 'ABC' before the end of the season," said Archie.

"My dear, what nonsense!" said she, with a sudden thrill of pleasure.

"What can have put that into your head?"

"I can see it. That's the way a man like the Bradshaw looks at a girl when his--his affections are engaged. He looks as if a very dear aunt was dead. He has _amour triste_."

That certainly hit off a type of gaze to which Helena felt that she had been subjected, and she laughed.

"Well, I'll give you five to one in half-crowns," she said.

"Don't. Some day I shall have twelve and sixpence."

They turned and cantered back along the soft track. The dew of night had not yet vanished from the gra.s.s, and the geometric looking plane-leaves, the rhododendrons, and the flower-beds were still varnished with moisture, and, early though it was, riders and foot-pa.s.sengers were plentiful. Probably the day would be hot, for the heat haze, purplish-brown in the distance, was beginning to form in the air, softly veiling the further view. Presently they dropped again into a walking-pace, and Helena, whose mind had been busy on Archie's description of a certain sort of love-lorn look, spoke of a subject suggested by it.

"How do you think Jessie is?" she asked.

"That's exactly what my mother asked me last night," said he. "She's rather silent and preoccupied, isn't she?"

"That struck me," said the girl. "I thought perhaps she wasn't very well, but she told me there was nothing the matter. Darling Jessie is so reserved. She never tells me anything. Certainly she looks well: do you think she has anything on her mind?"

"I don't see what she could have. But it's odd that it has struck all of us."

Helena sighed and shook her head with a pretty, unreproachful air.

"I sometimes wish that Jessie would make more of a friend of me," she said. "I try so hard to get close to her, but all the time I feel she is keeping me at arm's length. It would be lovely to have a sister who would admit me to her own, own self. But I always have to tap, so to speak, at Jessie's door, and she so often says she won't open it."

"Was she always like that?" asked Archie, seeing that Helena's eyes were dim and bright.

"Yes, but lately I think it has been worse. I wish Jessie would let me in. However, I am always waiting, and I think Jessie knows that. It is no use pressing for confidence, is it? One can only wait."

This picture, so simply and pathetically conveyed by Helena of herself waiting, a little dim-eyed, for Jessie to admit her, was very convincing, and Archie wondered at the contrast between the two sisters, the one so childlike in her confidence that all the world was her friend, the other holding herself rather detached, rather aloof, without that welcoming charm of manner that surely was the expression of an adorable mind. It was not wholly the light of his dawning love that invested the sketch with such tender colouring, for there was a great finish and consistency in Helena's presentation of herself which might have deceived the most neutral and heart-whole of observers.

Such was the first impression: then suddenly some instinct that lay below the surface surged up in rebellion against it, and washed the tender colouring out. It told him that the impression was a false one, that Jessie, so far from being callous and self-centred, as was the suggestion conveyed by Helena's words, was of faithful and golden heart.

And then, looking idly over the crowd that was growing thick on the broad gravel walk, he suddenly caught sight of Jessie herself looking at them. She was some little distance behind the rails that separated the ride from the path, and she instantly looked away, spoke to a girl who was with her, and strolled on. But Archie felt quite sure that she had seen them.