Athalie Part 67

"I know. Miss Greensleeve told her she might go home. It was a misunderstanding. But I want her to remain hereafter until Miss Greensleeve's servants come from New York."

So Connor went away to the village and Clive seated himself on a garden bench to wait.

Nothing stirred inside the house; the shades in Athalie's room remained lowered.

He watched the chimney swifts soaring and darting above the house. A faint dun-coloured haze crowned the kitchen chimney. Mrs. Connor was already busy over their breakfast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'"]

When the gardener returned with the purchases Clive went to his room again and remained there busy until a knock on the door and Mrs.

Connor's hearty voice announced breakfast.

As he stepped out into the pa.s.sage-way he met Athalie coming from her room in a soft morning negligee, and still yawning.

She bade him good morning in a sweet, sleepy voice, linked her white, lace-clouded arm in his, glanced sideways at him, humorously ashamed:

"I'm a disgrace," she said; "I could have slain Mrs. Connor when she woke me. Oh, Clive, I _am_ so sleepy!"

"Why did you get up?"

"My dear, I'm also hungry; that is why. I could scent the coffee from afar. And you know, Clive, if you ever wish to hopelessly alienate my affections, you have only to deprive me of my breakfast. Tell me, did you get _any_ sleep?"

He forced a smile: "I had sufficient."

"I wonder," she mused, looking at his somewhat haggard features.

They found the table prepared for them in the sun-parlour; Athalie presided at the coffee urn, but became a trifle flushed and shy when Mrs. Connor came in bearing a smoking cereal.

"I made a mistake in allowing you to go home," said the girl, "so I thought it best for Mr. Bailey to remain."

"Sure I was that worritted," burst out Mrs. Connor, "I was minded to come back--what with all the thramps and Dagoes hereabout, and no dog on the place, and you alone; so I sez to my man Cornelius,--'Neil,'

sez I, 'it's not right,' sez I, 'f'r to be lavin' th' young lady--'"

"Certainly," interrupted Clive quietly, "and you and Neil are to sleep in the house hereafter until Miss Greensleeve's servants arrive."

"I'm not afraid," murmured Athalie, looking at him with lazy amus.e.m.e.nt over the big, juicy peach she was preparing. But when Mrs. Connor retired her expression changed.

"You dear fellow," she said, "You need not ever be worried about me."

"I'm not, Athalie--"

"Oh, Clive! Aren't you always going to be honest with me?"

"Why do you think I am anxious concerning you when Connor and his wife--"

"Dearest!"

"What?" He looked across at her where she was serenely preparing his coffee; and when she had handed the cup to him she shook her head, gravely, as though in gentle disapproval of some inward thought of his.

"What is it?" he asked uneasily.

"You know already."

"What _is_ it?" he repeated, reddening.

"Must _I_ tell _you_, Clive?"

"I think you had better."

"_You_ should have told _me_, dear.... Don't ever fear to tell me what concerns us both. Don't think that leaving me in ignorance of unpleasant facts is any kindness to me. If anything happens to cause you anxiety, I should feel humiliated if you were left to endure it all alone."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."]

He remained silent, troubled, uncertain as yet, how much she knew of what had happened in the garden the night before.

"Clive, dear, don't let this thing spoil anything for us. I know about it. Don't let any shadow fall upon this house of ours."

"You saw me last night in the garden."

Between diffidence and the candour that characterised her, she hesitated; then:

"Dear, a very strange thing has happened. Until last night never in all my life, try as I might, could I ever 'see clearly' anything that concerned you. Never have I been able to 'find' you anywhere--even when my need was desperate--when my heart seemed breaking--"

She checked herself, smiled at him; then her eyes grew dark and thoughtful, and a deeper colour burned in her cheeks.

"I'll try to tell you," she said. "Last night, after I left you, I lay thinking about--love. And the--the new knowledge of myself disconcerted me.... There remained a vague sense of dismay and--humiliation--" She bent her head over her folded hands, silent until the deepening colour subsided.

Still with lowered eyes she went on, steadily enough: "My instinct was to escape--I don't know exactly how to tell this to you, dear,--but the impulse to escape possessed me--and I felt that I must rise from the lower planes and free myself from a--a lesser pa.s.sion--slip from the menace of its control--become clean again of everything that is not of the spirit.... Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"So I rose and knelt down and said my prayers.... And asked to be instructed because of my inexperience with--with these new and deep--emotions. And then I lay down, very tranquil again, leaving the burden with G.o.d.... All concern left me,--and the restless sense of shame. I turned my head on the pillow and looked out into the moonlight.... And, gently, naturally, without any sense of effort, I left my body where it lay in the moonlight, and--and found myself in the garden. Mother was there. You, also, were there; and two men with you."

His eyes never left her face; and now she looked up at him with a ghost of a smile:

"Mother spoke of the loveliness of the flowers. I heard her, but I was listening to you. Then I followed you where you were driving the two men from the grounds. I understood what had happened. After you went into the house again my mother and I saw you watching by your window.

I was sorry that you were so deeply disturbed.

"Because what had occurred did not cause me any anxiety whatever."

"Do you mean," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "that the probability of your name being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not disconcert you?"

"No."

"Why not? Is it because your clairvoyance rea.s.sures you as to the outcome of all this?"

"Dear," she said, gently, "I know no more of the outcome than you do.

I know nothing more concerning our future than do you--excepting, only, that we shall journey toward it together, and through it to the end, accomplishing the destiny which links us each to the other.... I know no more than that."